Guardian UK: We must not tolerate this putsch against our freedoms

[marmar]

We must not tolerate this putsch against our freedoms


A few journalists and MPs are prepared to fight the government's sinister anti-libertarianism. More people should join them

Henry Porter
Sunday November 18, 2007
The Observer


Welcome to Fortress Britain, a fortress that will keep people in as well as out. Welcome to a state that requires you to answer 53 questions before you're allowed to take a day trip to Calais. Welcome to a country where you will be stopped, scanned and searched at any of 250 railways stations, filmed at every turn, barked at by a police force whose behaviour has given rise to a doubling in complaints concerning abuse and assaults.

Three years ago, this would have seemed hysterical and Home Office ministers would have been writing letters of complaint. But it is a measure of how fast and how far things have gone that it does nothing more than describe the facts as announced last week.

We now accept with apparent equanimity that the state has the right to demand to know, among other things, how your ticket has been paid for, the billing address of any card used, your travel itinerary and route, your email address, details of whether your travel arrangements are flexible, the history of changes to your travel plans plus any biographical information the state deems to be of interest or anything the ticket agent considers to be of interest.

There is no end to Whitehall's information binge. The krill of personal data is being scooped up in ever-increasing quantities by a state that harbours a truly bewildering fear of the free, private and self-determined individual, who may want to take himself off to Paris without someone at home knowing his movements or his credit card number.

Combined with the ID card information, which comes on stream in a few years' time, the new travel data means there will be very little the state won't be able to find out about you. The information will be sifted for patterns of travel and expenditure. Conclusions will be drawn from missed planes, visits extended, illness and all the accidents of life, and because this is a government database, there will be huge numbers of mistakes that will lead to suspicion and action being taken against innocent people.

Those failing to provide satisfactory answers will not be allowed to travel and then it will come to us with a leaden regret that we have in practice entered the era of the exit visa, a time when we must ask permission from a security bureaucrat who insists on further and better particulars in the biographical section of the form. Ten, 15 or more years on, we will be resigned to the idea that the state decides whether we travel or not. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2212990,00.html

[Mojorabbit]

1. Wow those

comments under the article sound just like DU.

[marmar]

2. Those comments are great....

I love the "V for Vendetta" reference.

[Mojorabbit]

3. THis is one of my favorites

So, almost universal agreement that things are moving towards a repressive regime from which we shall never escape, but the only way to prevent it is to vote for someone else next time there is an election.

The problem is that by that time, it will probably be too late. It could be that you will not even have another election. It could have to be postponed because of a national crisis.

If you agree that this is all to do with peak oil, global climate change and the fact that OPEC and China could bankrupt America, then you have a terrified government, which shares its terror with America and the status quo of the last thousand years or so.

This is actually about any conventional type of power - political, military, religious and corporate - and its fears over what is going to happen over the next few years.

Governments can see that the biggest threat they are facing is going to be citizens over whom they lose control. The idea that people will form orderly queues for the soup kitchen as the universal money machine splutters and dies is, of course, a nonsense.

We are talking about power being concentrated into the hands of the very, very few. If you are posting here, you will not be one of them.

So, twiddle your thumbs for another few years and then form an orderly queue at the polling station and remember to have your ID cards ready.

To make your voting experience easier and to give you true personal empowerment, we have refined your voting choice to just one party. Enjoy!

[HCE SuiGeneris]

4. kick

[grasswire]

5. look at this comment

There are many things we can do to thwart this awful assault on our freedoms.

1. Stop traveling overseas, if you can. And go to your local travel agent and tell them why you are not going overseas this year. Hurt their income and they will see they must join the boycott.
2. Refuse to fill in the form. Write across it in big letters, NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. So what if they refuse to let you travel?
3. Write to your MPs. Not just once, but many times. Write to Gordon Brown too, and swap No 10 with mail. Take it there in sacks if you have to. Dump it on the footpaths. Dump it in front of their official cars. Dump it in front of your MP's home. Make it as visible as possible. Get as many people in your neighborhood as possible to join you.
4. Make handmade signs and put them everywhere...WE WILL NOT GIVE YOU OUR PRIVATE INFORMATION!
5. Get out on the streets and demonstrate. Make your voice heard. Why don't we all agree on a date and then get out on the streets? Will someone organize this, please?
6. Go to international airports, train stations, bus stations, boat harbours and demonstrate. Make our outrage as VISIBLE as possible.
7. Go up to surveillance cameras and make faces up close to the lens. Block their vision so the watchers can't see anything. Do this whenever you can.

There are lots of things we can do to stop them. Just use your imagination.

DO NOT sit here like a dumb sheep and accept this! It's time to stop the constant erosion of our freedom.