Brian Eno: The well of freedom is running dry
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Independent Minds
Nobody bothers about civil liberties until they've gone. As the old country song warns: "You don't miss your water till your well runs dry."
We are letting the well run dry, allowing little bits of our civil freedoms to be chipped away by paranoiac governments who assure us we can trust them – and consistently betray that trust.
We are gradually sacrificing what has taken hundreds of years of civilisation to achieve, which is a condition of some kind of liberty. It may not be evident to everyone yet, but we have lost so much freedom in the past 10 years. When the Government passed its "anti-terror" laws, it reassured those who campaigned against them that they would only ever be used in the most extreme circumstances.
But these are completely vague laws which enable a government to arrest almost anybody for almost everything.
Within a couple of years they had been used to eject an 80-year-old heckler from a Labour Party conference, to arrest a woman for reading out the names of British soldiers killed in Iraq, and to freeze the assets of Icelandic banks in England. This is the problem with vague legislation of this type: it invariably gets called into use whenever anybody does anything that the Government finds embarrassing or the police find inconvenient.
It criminalises the behaviour of concerned citizens and thereby encourages disengagement and apathy. By preventing people from taking part in critiques of governance it increases the gap between rulers and ruled: it is fundamentally anti-democratic.
I worry about initiatives like identity cards and computer databases because they could be a step towards a police state, with completely innocent people being held in custody because of software malfunctions.
It is incredibly sad that these moves towards a police state should have happened under a Labour government. Gordon Brown should think about the serious problems that need to be solved – such as climate change – and direct his government's efforts towards that.
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Comments
This corrupt nulabor cult understands the importance of controlling the flow of information and stifling debate. It is pure paranoia and desperation on the part of nulabor to censor public criticism.
This nulabor cadre has declared war upon it citizens. Dovernment has become the enemy of the state.
Last time this happened, heads rolled, literally
Why is nulabor seemingly deliberately doing everything it can to ensure the development of those conditions that give rise to disorder, social unrest, riots, insurrection and even revolution ?
If the populace should react as being driven, this gives nulabor its excuse to impose a dictatorship - which is, by and large, what we have had for the past several years, with increasing impositions upon the freedoms of citizens.
This nulabor government is corrupt. The nulabor corruption is absolute, lead from the top down, imposed through all tiers of social and government control, down to street level. Being rotten to the core and from the core, everything it touches it taints. Having neither the ability nor inclination to correct itself, outside intervention is indicated.
While denying us more and more ancient freedoms, government is also becoming more and more corrupt. When BAe was accused of illegal backhanders to the House of Saud, the DPP was told to back off because the Saudis would stop sharing security information. Now, when David Miliband was asked to provide information about the torture of Binyam Mohamed with the direct involvement of MI5, he suddenly produces a letter from the US State Department threatening to - you guessed it - stop sharing security information. This time, two days later, we find out that the FO requested the letter, something Miliband 'forgot' to mention under oath. Strangely, the DPP does not charge him with Perjury. Can we protest about this apparent double standard? Only if the police say so, and not anywhere near Parliament.
We're on the verge of having to wear dog tags (the mandatory ID card) when we walk abroad, and t have to pay for the privelege of having vast amounts of personal information - DNA, emails, health records, financial records, legal records - stored on national databases which will only be accessible to a few hundred thousand people of perfect honesty and impeccable typing skills. If the information is wrong, you will not know it. If you don't like it, tough. Since when has it been a crime to exist? Since when has there been a two-tier legal system, with impunity for ministers? The only beneficiaries of this electronic mayhem are the international data handling companies who will inherit the mega contracts, and presumably provide retirement homes for tired ministers.
Will there be any enquiries? Not if ministers get their way. They want the power to make Enquiries secret. Guess why?
Brian, I appreciate your comments but it's way past time to object politely. It's time to get angry and take back our lives while we still have some vestige of ancient legal rights.
Now if everyone said and did the same thing.............just what exactly can the politicians do?
Power to the people
Also the possibility of terrorism is given as the reason we have to fight wars in the Middle East. Wasn't the coming together of nations supposed to stop wars?
Long Now: Given current demographic trends, how soon before Britain, or at least England, becomes a muslim country? What price our freedoms then?
We must demand that the Tories when they get power will amend anti terror laws so that they can only ever be used against terrorists.
Better start saying it now. Soon it will be hard to remember.
Sorry I beg to differ. You obviously do not what databases will be behind these Cards and if you do, then you're Mandelson and I claim my £5
SILENT CAPS FOR THE TIME BEING
NO COPPER IS PERFECT,
COPPERS ARE TARNISHED AND BROWN,
NO COPPER IS PERFECT,
NO COPPER THAT YOU FIND,
LYING
AROUND
NO COPPER IS PERFECT,
NO COPPER THAT CAN BE FOUND,
NO COPPER IS PERFECT,
TARNISHED COPPERS ABOUND
WHENEVER I SEE A TARNISHED COPPER,
LYING ON THE GROUND,
I ALWAYS BEND OVER
AND PICK IT UP,
RATHER THAN KICK IT AROUND
'COS A TARNISHED COPPER,
THAT WAS ONCE BRIGHT,
IS A SORRY LOOKING SIGHT,
LYING IN THE GUTTER
ON A COLD WET WINDY NIGHT
NO COPPER IS PERFECT,
JUST AS THE WORLD IS ROUND,
NO COPPER IS PERFECT,
COPPERS ARE TARNISHED AND BROWN
M8*
http://theunpeople.blogspot.com/
People have been allowing this increasing serfdom for decades, what is the catalyst that will change it?
http://politicalnewsblogs.com/
Your welcome to join us, as are all who are interested in Freedom of Speech and the Right to Protest.
It's not incredibly sad that the Nu Labor Kult has burdened us with the Police State it is very predictable. For an ideology that depends on coercing the individual into behaving in the politically correct way Nu Lab Kults resort to totalitarian methods should come as no surprise.
That's an excellent article.
More people who have the ability to speak out, should be railing against this pernicious authoritarian Government and the repression of the people whom it purports to represent.
I personally don't think that any of this 'controlling' legislation brought in by a Labour Government....A LABOUR GOVERNMENT ! (as Neil Kinnock might say) is by 'accident'......or .......carelessness.
ALL Labours 3000+ new laws were brought in with 'malice of forethought' for one reason only; to control the population and thereby place a stranglehold on the reins of power.
The Terrorism Laws are a logical extension of this..........when people peacefully protest; they can be arrested and detained for 42 days without charge..........you mentioned the lady reading out the names of the war dead from the Illegal Iraq War at the Cenotaph who was arrested.
That is probably the singular most venal act that this despicable Labour Government has perpetrated against the ordinary citizen of this country as it tramples all over the memory of the dead of two world wars who fought and died to save our country from tyranny..........I wonder how they would feel about the Quisling Labour Party who have introduced it by the back door.......making their sacrifices all for nought; if WE, the current generation let it happen.
I sometimes think that Labour simply losing the General Election is way too small a price for them to pay - they should be removed from power in a revolution and put on trial for their criminality.
Silent Hunter - http://politicalnewsblogs.com/
Dear Staff:
Mr. Eno is so right about this he is burning hot! This week former Attorney General John Ashcroft stated that President Obama has kept the practise of torture, extraordinary rendition (kidnapping etc.) and indefinite detention in place from the Bush Administration. He even stated the only difference in Bush and Obama's policies was the way the names were spelled.
Ashcroft has expressed a desire to start the use of detention camps for U.S. citizens, meaning these have already been built and are ready to be filled etc. Alex Jones, radio commentator from Dallas, Texas has further confirmed the existence of the camps on American soil. No doubt there is something similar planned for Great Britain, especially with the two British journalists jailed in California without bail for satire.
It will take a willingness to see what is beneath the appearance of our cultures in the U.S. in Britain. Another great British journalist, David Icke has said this is but the "turning of the tide...", and that we must all remember who we really are to stop the loss of our freedom at the hands of leaders who merely want to enslave us (with a one world government).
Sincerely,
Luther R. Norman, M.M. USA