Phil wrote: snipped > Sorry for the rant, but I have not seen anyone put forth an argument in > favour of this technological advance, and I thought it worth while. After > all, if you're behaving yourself, it shouldn't matter if Big Brother is > looking over your shoulder, should it?
Sorry Phil, I disagree. We've suffered a creeping increase in surveillance of the innocent population for years now and there has to be a limit line drawn somewhere. Imagine, if you will, a line drawn between, at the one end, no surveillance at all and, at the other, a Stasi (East German)situation where neighbours frequently denounced neighbours because they had fallen out with them. Now decide where on that downhill line you think is an ideal position to be for the state to monitor its citizens. Our problem here is that we continue to slide slowly down that line with little public protest. We are constantly spun the message that it is for our own good whilst we slither closer to state control of everything. We have a more centralised government now than we've had for ages. We get our official information in a form now that is, by and large, pure spin.....spin, could that also be called propaganda? Because it is done so slowly and, due to the increase in terrorism, claimed to be for our benefit we are barely aware of what is happening. Recent examples of terroism in this country have been by radicalised UK passport holders and citizens, not outsiders, so how is having an ID card or biometric passport going to control them? We also have vast and unknown numbers of illegal immigrants, so if one was an outside terrorist how could we control his movements when we don't even know he's here? > > Cheers from Nova Scotia, where it's been snowing steadily for the past 4 > hours--anyone interested in semi-professional snow removal services? The > hourly rate is cheap, but you might find the transportation costs a bit > steep! :-) No probs here in this part of North Yorkshire, you can hardly tell that there was any snow at all. Roger
