Steved - I'm afraid you are not the arbitar of whether this affects you, the government and their software is.

Another database the Labour Party wish to introduce is one which compels ISP's to monitor every site you visit and every e-mail you make, every phone call you make and to whom, hold that data for ten years and submit it to the state.

Let us play a thought game; You visit the Sahara forum here to plan a trip to Morocco. On a thread you see the word polisario. Is this what they call the cops over there? You google Polisario and find it's an acronym "Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro " an armed terrorist organistion with rumored links to Al Qaeda, at war with Marocco for some years. Oh well, none of your business. Except that your visit to that site has been logged on a database. On another database it is noted that you are travelling to Morocco and the two items of data are combined on a third database which in a reciprocal arrangment with the Moroccan government flags you up as a visitor with known links to the Polisario. You enter Marocco happy in the knowledge that you'll soon be Waddi Bashing. Except that pretty quickly you find yourself in a dark cell bent over a bench with a cattle prod where the sun don't shine trying to explain that you have no links to the Polisario even though your government has furnished docmentary proof you do.

Far fetched? Watch out for a UK resident returning this week from Gitmo after seven years under very similar circumstances. The High Court was prevented last week from revealing what exactly happend to ths person after threats from the US and UK government, thought to be motivated by implicating those governments and their ministers in conspiracy to torture.

Still - if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear right? And it's not like computers make mistakes

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Very!

While I can understand what you are saying the fact is that the example you give is way over simplified. Data mining of this type could and no doubt is used in such a way, but it would take a lot more than a single visit to a website and a trip to a foreign country to get you flagged as an international terrorist, as for Binyam Mohamed how does his case relate to this? As I understand it he is in Gitmo having been accused of training at an Al-Qaeda camp and trying to fly using a false passport.

Don't get me wrong, I don't support the thinking behind Gitmo at all, but I also don't see how it relates to government gathering information about it's citizens travel arrangements either.

China is developing (or perhaps more accurately getting other people to develop) a system called Golden Shield. In a nutshell, it incorporates internet monitoring and face-recognition CCTV, so that at any minute of the day the government can know who is where and what they're doing. It's being trialled in Shanghai. And the British government is interested.

Now I'm not a huge paranoia-type person. I also (and many will shout at me about this) believe that quite frankly there isn't very much we can do about it. After all, given Britain went to war in Iraq with that much public and international opinion against them, protests aren't really going to stop anything. And we already have a prime minister that no ordinary voter got a say about (and an unelected royal family, and a war to teach the Iraqis about democracy. But that's another story).

The thing is, in Britain at the moment we can get away with saying it doesn't concern us. And Britain's CCTV-fest began with the IRA and preventing attacks, which in principle is a good thing. But what matters is what happens if those at the top aren't as scrupulous as they should be. The Chinese government cheerfully imprisons people for looking at websites they don't think people should - things like BBC news for example. Because to their mind that's evidence of dissent. What matters isn't whether you've done anything wrong or not, it's the fact that the goverment gets the power to prove you did something it thinks was wrong. And that infrastructure, once there, stays there. Hitler was elected. France nearly brought in LePen through sheer voter apathy (which scared them into going to the polls for the 2nd round). George Bush is a war criminal - and isn't ever going to go to trial for it. In France you already have to carry a form of ID on you at all times. As a young white woman I've never had mine checked. For black or Arab male friends it's almost routine.

Mistakes happen, but rarely. But what happens if the political situation changes and you become the "target" population?

On a lighter note, I used to do gigs at Windsor Castle. As you can imagine, every company has to submit the names of its employees for the day in advance, so they can be security checked. We turned up one day to find a lot of cops hanging around. Asked them what was happening, and they said one of the catering guys had been flagged up - he was on the run from the cops for a stabbing. So rather than chase him, they came to wait for him. How stupid do you have to be to take on a job in a royal palace when you're wanted by the police?!

Laura, still looking for that patch of hillside where the world and its machinations can be ignored.

It is rumored that the case against Binyam Mohamed eminated from a visit he made to a spoof website about how to make a nuclear bomb in your kitchen. After 18 months of systematic torture the US government built a case in their own minds that he was planning a "dirty bomb". There are no charges against this person and he is awaiting release from Gitmo..

My thought game whilst illustrative does not constitute my argument against all this. If data is collected on everyone then everyone is a suspect, the state and the security forces will always find what they are predisposed to find. In the 1950's that well know liberal pinko President Eisenhower in his valedictory address warned against the powerful military industrial complex creating a momentum which he feared might be unstoppable and result in nuclear war with Russia. The same is happening now with mass surveilance mechanisms under the pretext of security.

The state, whether by design or not is arranging a state of affairs that makes us accountable to them, contrary to the status quo. It is using fear and the "precautionary principle" to accrue more power to the state and is diligently assembling the instruments and mechanisms of a totalitarian state. It will not be like any totalitarian state seen before but will nevertheless, be one. In my opinion it will be a state of "total government".

The British people will one day wake up and realise they are living in a new form of a police state with little or no power to do anything about it. They will deserve this state of affairs because they did nothing to stop it. They may even enjoy their new state. I will observe you from afar.

Good night and good luck.

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not meaning to sound racist, but his name was mohamed, guilty or not, and he was looking at how to build a nuke in ones own kitchen. im not the type to racially stereoptype, i see a person as a person and not a spectrum of light or colour, or religion or creed. but in the big book of "know your terrorist" this would make the reader very suspiscious.

i hope i do not sound like an arse and feel sick at the though of him being torture.

as for police controlled state; i laugh so hard my sides are splitting at that idea chum. we have it ****ing good compared to those poor bastards in less fortunate parts of the world.

Hopefully this Government won't be in power long enough for their crazy ideas to come into effect, why don't they go the whole way and propose micro chipping us all?

Why check on us when our borders welcome every scumbag that wants to jump on the uk benefits and health system.

We know Clarkson is a twat but he was correct about Gordon(un-elected)Brown, the bit that amused me was the person who 'jumped' to Browns defence.........David Blunkett,

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'He who laughs last, was too slow to get the joke'
Never confuse the map with the journey.

...i'm not a racist - but hmmm how many callers to phone in shows begin with that line then continue with "but his name was mohamed"...

a police state is not a state controlled by police, they are as much controlled as anyone else is in such a state. We do have it quite good (not ****ing good) so let's keep it that way.

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Good point Davy Edge - all who are reading this, when the time comes please please please put your tick in the box that is not labour!!!!

A vote for anyone else but labour is a vote for freedom

Laura Bennit - Irony of Ironies, I seem to remember the Chinese visited London to study our advanced surveillance systems so they could apply them back home. I wonder if in 2012 there will be British "men in blue track suits" running alongside the torch intercepting freedom protesters? If you find that patch let me know and I'l lcome and sit next to you

ps also for the poster who made the point about the war I am reminded of the old pre WW1 definition of a socialist - "someone who thinks a bayonet is a tool that should have a worker at each end"

...the more things change the more they stay the same

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never thought for one minute that you were man. just had to make a sad fact that someone with a name or middle eastern origin is more likely to be a suspected than that of a western name. its a sad state of affairs.

There have been several unelected PMs. But it didnt suit the rightwing press to scream about it.

So who's controlling the police? And if we have it "quite good" tell that to the many innocent Irish people jailed for 18 years in the UK; Tell it to the British citizens illegally kidnapped and imprisoned without trial in Guantanamo... as they say on that "Jungle " TV show....it could be you!

Damn - I promised myself not to get drawn in .......

Cammie, not sure you can lay the blame of British Citizens in Guantanamo on Britain. I think the citizens were brought out by the british government. short of going to war with the Americans not sure what they could do more, for the citizens

The Irish, of course, yes, that was a problem. When using the term quite good I reckon he ewas probably saying quite in comparison to (in no particualr order, and not exclusively):

Russia
America
China
Burma
Zimbabwe
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
Angola
Congo
Indonesia
Malaysia
Saudi
Uzbekistan
Iran
Cuba

etc etc

I always love people here harping on about how opressed we are. We are not and we are privilidged compared the majority of the world! Most people in the world would give their right arms to live here. And I do mean that literally in every sense.

Of course, it is our duty as citizens of the country to keep it this way by stopping bad legislation coming in etc. But man the moaning minis of this country, to me, are the worst things about it ....


Right thats it, got it off my chest.

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Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009

Good points Ollie - and I tried to resist comment too but I couldn't help it!

The UK govt did nothing for years about Guan. It was a disgrace. They only got involved recently because the US wants to shut down this hideous jail. And the UK took orders as usual, just as over Iraq.

Dont forget that the US invaded British territory some years back and the uk whimpered but said and did nothing about it.

Those above who think the state is benign should look at McCarthyism, Guan., the H Block prisons, the Diplock courts and many other examples.

As far as I am aware the British government was one of the first people to get it's citizens out of Guantanamo. It was the residence and others that they did not help (why should they???). I totally do not agree with Guantanamo BTW. They should fight to close it yes, but if you are complaining about the way the govenment interferes with British citizens you are choicing the wrong example, I am led to believe anyhow. If you know different let me know please!

I do agree that the state is by no means benign, but I just ask for a little bit of balance. To the everyday Jo, this country has a lot of good things going for it. To compare this in ANY way to Nazi Germany, as has been implied in other posts, to me shows either ignorance of what went on 70 years ago, or just a very bad argument.

Bit there are problems I do agree, but keep the scale correct is all I ask.

But to me, this debate is important ....... and the only way to keep it serious is to keep the hyperbole out and the facts in.

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Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009

Hi Ollie, I would urge you to read a copy of the book Taking Liberties in order to gain a balanced view. There is no "innocent till proven guilty", no " freedom of speach" either in the UK now. I regret this but must still observe it to be so. Linzi.