Inching ever closer to a police state?

'The Times' reported yesterday that the Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan which allows police to hack into our computers without a warrant. This has, apparently been sponsored by Brussels, and is considered to be an important new step in the fight against internet crime.

But, I seriously ask, does there come a point at which the excuses given by government for giving police ever greater snooping powers, have to be weighed against the effects on us as a society?

Tony Blair reacted very angrily in the Commons, some years ago, when the accusation 'leading a police state' was thrown at him by an opposition MP. But just consider the number of CCTV cameras in our streets, the rights of police to intercept our e mails, the ability from Jan26th this year for police to raid your home to see if you possess 'dangerous pictures' and now an endorsement of their right to hack into your home PC.



I'm sure the Home Office could quote loads of statistics on how this will assist in the fight against crime. But what protection does the average citizen get against abuse of this privilege. It is not sufficient for self-satisfied guardians of law and order to say 'If you've done nothing wrong, you don't need to worry'. Apart from this being the wrong premise to adopt from the start, what constitutes 'wrong' as evidenced by the Dangerous Pictures Act , is ever changing and seemingly on a political whim.

I wish 'Liberty' had more teeth. I wish our MPs had more guts in opposing this kind of thing without clear and workable safeguards in place. For those who think I am scaremongering, just look at how we reviled the Soviet Union some years back for the sinister policy of spying on all its citizens and how we said 'Thank God we live in a democracy. That could never happen here!'