The UK Government wants communications companies to record all internet contacts to help enforcement agencies catch terrorists, murderers and paedophiles. Presumably this will be useful to track criminals organising their activities via email and the like. Civil libertarians are concerned for privacy. Examples given were that the privacy of the partners of Government officials who are ordering pornography online, and the leading business-person who is contacting Alcoholics Anonymous, would be at risk.
I’m wondering why the official’s partner should be worried about people knowing they are renting pornography. It’s not illegal, after all. Unless it is, of course, and then scrutiny is fair enough. And why should those who know, care? Or misuse that information? But then maybe I’m being naïve.
The UK, alongside China, Russia and the US, has a reputation for being a ‘surveillance society’. Call recording, CCTV and postal interception are traditional surveillance methods. With the communication revolution, criminals had a new, secure method through the internet, to quickly make contact and disseminate information. Now the UK Government is trying to gain access to more information in this arena.
The big difference between the Orwellian regime so chillingly described in Nineteen Eighty-Four and the current reality of the UK is in the attitude of that central controlling body. Is it feasible that the Orwellian style of controlling body can exist? Just look at China for the answer.
But laws made today with the kind of government the UK currently has are unlikely to matter if the country ever falls to a dictatorship. Fiji is a good example of how personal freedoms rapidly disappear when control is taken and held by force. Instituting further surveillance today is not going to lead the UK Government to corruption. It is corruption itself, brought about by whatever social conditions, that will sweep away personal freedom, regardless of existing laws.