The stock police/security answer to proliferation of CCTVs is: “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about”. But Vancouver Sun columnist Pete McMartin points out that governments now use ‘incalculable risks’ as a measure for beefing up surveillance and security. In doing so, they allow the terrorists to win – and they make all of us much more fearful. Read this article »… and also what follows here…
Meanwhile, in the UK, a blogger has neatly summed up where the main risks come from to people’s privacy and security of person details held by the government:
Nothing to fear but Government
A blogger in the UK, Roger Clarke (same name and spelling, but not the Australian Privacy Medal winner!) has summed up why Britons need to be afraid, very afraid, of their own government:
“It’s hard to believe how naïve some people are. The (British) Government have decided the DNA taken by police from innocent people can be held for six years and some bloke was pompously chuntering on about how those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear.
“Nothing to fear! This is the Government we are talking about whose record of keeping any information safe is nothing to write home about – which is perhaps just as well as they seem intent on destroying Royal Mail as the icing on the stale cake as they come to the end of what will be 13 years of disasters (an election is due early in 2010).
“Apart from the fact DNA records are likely to be left on a train, dumped in a skip or posted on the internet, we all know that anyone who makes a donation to party funds and throws a few bob at the Treasury will have access.
“It happened with driver information and with health records and when insurance companies and banks get their hands on DNA then the innocent will find themselves guilty of dodgy genes when it comes to life and medical cover, mortgages and loans.
“Oh, and look out for the small print. I suspect MPs will be exempt as the laws we endure somehow don’t seem to apply to them.”
http://blogs.birminghammail.net/isitjustme/2009/11/nothing-to-fear-but-government.html American eco-anarchist Edward Abbey summed it up well: ‘A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government’.