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Click goes our rights
• EROSION of our civil liberties is a worrying mark of the Labour government so it is no surprise that Councillor Lisa Spall welcomes police having continual access to congestion-charging cameras.
The government has brought in 53 law and order acts and created 3,000 new criminal offences since 1997.
Access to the cameras is for a trial three months and then a review but do not be surprised if this is just softening up for permanent surveillance. It should only be for specific need.
Britain has become a surveillance society, the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said last year. Mr Thomas, the independent official responsible for data protection, warned that our privacy is being subordinated to the interests of law enforcement agencies and businesses.
Britain has 4.2 million of the world’s 21 million CCTV cameras – 14 people for every camera. We are caught 300 times a day on CCTV on average.
The fingerprint and DNA databases, telephone taps, CCTV cameras and satellite tracking are in place for the setting up of a totalitarian state.
Police have secretly brought back stop-and-search powers, using the Terrorism Act 2000, for day-to-day duties even if they have no grounds for suspicion, it was revealed in a Metropolitan Police Authority report in May.
There’s no respite under authoritarian Gordon Brown, who supports the fiercely intrusive ID card system and who is pushing to lock up people without charge for two months.
If, heaven forbid, Britain should ever fall into the hands of a dictator, s/he would find that most of their groundwork has been done. We cannot assume that Britain will always have relatively benign governments.
LEO CHAPMAN
Dufferin Street, EC1
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