Re: It'll be found to be legal if...
"The first control they want is "freedom", but "power" comes soon after."
Ok, the UK isn't quite a despotic regime yet, but secret courts and un-restricted surveillance for dubious purposes are all steps in one direction, and that direction doesn't equate to more control for the citizens of the UK; it certainly isn't democracy.
The politicians treat the electorate like sheep, and they act like sheep.
There has never been a time in history when so much of our daily lives is influenced (directly or indirectly) by the media, which doesn't dance to the tune of democracy. If the inexorable advance of technology leads to tools that can listen to what people are saying in their homes en-masse, then the use of that technology has to have the highest degree of oversight imaginable, otherwise the power hungry will have a stick that, should they choose to wield it openly, would make it difficult to create any kind of organised resistance against it.
Some could argue that that is happening right now. Can you state that the media is truly independant and that government oversight of hidden agencies is adequate?
The things that people were being call tin-hatters for only 10 years ago is now taken for granted by the general populace. That there is no outcry only re-inforces my belief that people have been effectively divided. Of course, it could also mean that people don't really care, but I often hear about people's negative reactions when they are actually confronted with details of just how far state surveillance has gone, and their response is invariably 'Well, what can we do?'
I don't want to take control of the UK, and I don't support anyone else who does (apart from through the democratic process) - but that doesn't mean that I want some nameless, faceless un-accountable beauracrat to have ever increasing control over what I say and what I do.
The evidence of self-censorship is all around us, people are getting 'offended' on other people's behalf because they don't want to be seen as prejudiced, or a sympathiser of some dodgy moral outlook. It's all top-show and means absolutely bollock-all.
If a decent, hard-working sensible person tried to get into parliament - someone who spoke without weasle-words - how far do you think they would get? There are some out there, and I think they become dis-illusioned by the whole system pretty quickly.
If people like that can't get the support they need from 'the people', and the 'people' can't recognise such a person over the bum-fluffery of the morally-bankrupt (yet skillfull) career politicians, then I suppose they deserve to be herded into their little mind-boxes and fed x-factor 24 hours a day.
Personally I don't like to give in, but if there were a country I could go to to be free of this scourge, I would. Once upon a time that country would have been the UK. Who would say that now?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
