Geraint
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Joined: 18 Jan 2005
Posts: 5045
Location: Glasgow
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 Posted: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:33:21 +0000 Post subject: Herald: No freedom without the freedom to say no |
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http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featuresopinon/display.var.2490964.0.No_freedom_without_the_freedom_to_say_no.php | Quote: | Nanny state or Big Brother? The question is often posed. There is no satisfactory answer. Caring nannies do not record every action of their charges, sharing private matters with all and sundry, or create files destined to haunt for life those whom they nurture.
Yet Orwell's image of a jackboot stamping on a human head forever is not one that sits comfortably with the grey-suited men and women who govern us.
Rather than nanny or Big Brother, think of our government more as an ill-disciplined, selfish child: only vaguely aware that others may have alternative points of view; it pretends to listen when challenged but is determined to follow its own course of action, often based on unreasoned instincts; it never apologises or admits error unless compelled to do so.
As it grows, this wayward child becomes increasingly bossy. Those tasked with holding the government to account, who act in loco parentis, have failed to channel its energies productively or curb its wilder tendencies.
We live in a surveillance society. It has developed ad hoc without justification. Ministers lurch from headline to headline, while backroom bureaucrats try to transform government into a shining monument of the digital age - a magnificent database state in which to immerse themselves, blissfully unaware of the horror caused in those they supposedly serve, oblivious to historical lessons.
We are accustomed to surveillance. Police officers standing on street corners reassure people going about their business. Gradually they are replaced by less effective, cheaper, ubiquitous CCTV. In Glasgow, we shall soon discover whether residents are comfortable with their conversations being monitored by microphones attached to the cameras. But the most intrusive surveillance is less apparent. In this information age, digital ghosts shadow us, and records are held on databases by organisations with which we interact only fleetingly. Although conceptually similar to paper records held in dusty filing cabinets, the differences are crucial. Digital information can be stored indefinitely, cross-linked with ease. Errors accumulate and proliferate, but the data do not degrade. Access and sharing of information occurs at the press of the key or the click of a mouse. And the blighters are recording everything in sight!
Scottish pensioners are tracked every time they swipe their concessionary bus passes. Summaries of medical records have been uploaded to centralised databases, to be accessed by distant doctors and nurses across the land. School children are routinely fingerprinted in library and dinner queues. Local authorities insist that young Scots must carry smart cards, only offering an opt-out if parents ask.
Meanwhile, council officials can spy on our communications for the most trivial reasons, accessing mandatory records held by phone companies and internet service providers to monitor whom we talk to or exchange e-mails with (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act). The Registrar General for Scotland has new powers to compile lists of any personal information about anyone in Scotland (Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services Scotland Act), while the Scottish Government builds a population register ready for the Home Secretary to seize.
The surveillance is increasingly indiscriminate. No longer is intrusion confined to those causing reasonable suspicion. No longer are judges deciding when privacy can be violated: we are all suspects. Our data are recorded routinely for retrospective analysis should the authorities ever decide to take an interest. Any authorities, on any pretext.
The Home Office demands the right to know our personal details, where we bank, where we travel (Identity Cards Act, Borders and Immigration Act, numerous terror Acts). The national identity scheme lingers on like a zombie, decaying and rotten long after its natural demise was apparent to all. But there are worse monsters under the bed. Now the Ministry of Justice wants ministers to have the power to share our private medical records with researchers; the power to link police DNA records with our medical data; the power to seize or distribute any other personal information held by any body, regardless of any duties of confidentiality or the purpose for which that information was obtained (Coroners and Justice Bill). The Data Protection Act is to be emasculated, its already weak and ineffective provisions made entirely redundant.
Absent from all this is consent. Fully informed, uncoerced, revokable consent, actionable in courts of law. Without the freedom to say "no" we have no freedom; no privacy; no dignity.
Our consent is presumed. Surveillance is endemic. And control has been taken out of our hands. Belatedly, the sustained assault on precious liberties is being recognised. It is time to redress the balance.
Along with the right to tax us and pass legislation with which we are expected to comply, elected representatives have responsibilities to protect our individual rights. Despite sterling efforts by individual politicians, collectively they have failed to perform that duty. Petty party politics and tribalism have facilitated the enactment of bad laws on issues where there should be no ideological divide. Policies have been implemented with scant scrutiny or none at all by those who should have been holding the executive to account.
MPs have ceded control of the Commons to the executive, which runs amok in its legislative sweetie shop, spewing forth an endless stream of ill-conceived Bills, guillotining debate and vandalising the law indiscriminately. People from across the political spectrum, and particularly the disillusioned masses with no particular party affiliation, must start to tell our politicians where we wish to go as a society. We must articulate what values we hold dear, what principles must be defended, what intrusions we will not tolerate. There will not be perfect consensus.
Complex issues are at stake and genuine balances must be struck between conflicting interests. But the discussion must be led by the desires of the population, how we want to live our lives, not by the defence of existing plans hatched by civil servants in pursuit of short-sighted administrative efficiency, or ministers desperate to appease tabloid headline-writers.
This Saturday, the Scottish Convention on Modern Liberty will be hosted by NO2ID and the Institute for Advanced Studies at Strathclyde University. Invited experts will present facets of the topic Surveillance in Scottish Society to stimulate discussion with participants. Speakers are drawn from various fields, representing policy-makers, practitioners, academics and campaigners. Ministers have been invited.
The first of what we intend to be a series of participative events focusing on issues of important public policy in Scotland, the aim is to raise awareness of current and emerging threats to liberty and provoke constructive dialogue within Scottish civic society.
The Convention on Modern Liberty will take place across the UK, with simultaneous events in London, Belfast, Cardiff, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge and Manchester.
www.modernliberty.net.
# Dr Geraint Bevan represents NO2ID Scotland.
Iain Macwhirter is away.
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Geraint.
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