Summer of Rage or Seven-Year Hate?

This is taken from PoliticalNewsBlogs.com, a new site which is asking people to think about where politics is going and how it can be shaped to serve the people, rather than act as a tool for repression by the state.

In Britain at the moment, people are waking up to the fact that they live in a surveillance society, where there are more CCTV cameras tracking their every move than in any other country on earth.

The British government intends to track, monitor and store forever in a vast database, every email, text message, telephone call and internet activity of everyone - forever.

The police are now recording on video the activities of innocent people and storing this for seven years - in case these people might commit a crime at a later date.

Companies are now using commercial operations to weed through the lives of potential staff. If you have ever belonged to a tarde union or made a complaint about your employer, you may not be allowed to work again.

All the time this is happening, Britain is portrayed abroad as a free and liberal country.

David Hartshorn, the policeman in charge of public order, recently made a prediction that there would be "A Summer of Rage" this year, as the economic situation worsens and people lose their homes and jobs, with no chance of recovery.

It sounded less like a prediction and more like a provocation.

"Come out onto the streets to protest and we will calogue every last one of you to make sure we will forever be able to control your lives."

Here is the article:

The man who invited you - cajoled and pimped you and touted the tickets and arranged all the acts and, most importantly, ensured that the event would be captured on film to be enjoyed for series of repeats - to this year’s Summer of Rage events up and down the country, David Hartshorn, has admitted that such crowd-pullers are simply used to trap you like a skewered butterfly in front of the cameras and extract your data.

The Guardian has this: 

Information released by Scotland Yard under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that while raw surveillance material is stored in a warehouse, material on certain individuals “is added to a corporate intelligence database”. Scotland Yard’s disclosure, in response to questions from NUJ lawyers , stated “generally, records are retained for seven years”.

Superintendent David Hartshorn, from the Met’s public order branch, conceded law-abiding campaigners were being added to the database.

This is obviously given the rubber stamp by New Labour’s tendency to bring about a situation where we are all criminals until the state decides that we are, for a time, at least, innocent of anything they want to pin on us.

It also fits nicely with Tony Blair’s ideas that, if we snoop, trail, stalk and surveille every baby and child (except for those of wonderful politicians and celebrities, of course) as it writhes, crawls, toddles and stumbles through life, we are inevitably going to catch it doing something wrong and then we, the state, will be able to swoop and pounce and throw it into the back of a black maria and hurtle to the nearest Titan Prison and bang it up for good.

It is also a very useful facility for a police state.

The Guardian has found:

• Activists “seen on a regular basis” as well as those deemed on the “periphery” of demonstrations are included on the police databases, regardless of whether they have been convicted or arrested.

• Names, political associations and photographs of protesters from across the political spectrum – from campaigners against the third runway at Heathrow to anti-war activists – are catalogued.

• Police forces are exchanging information about protesters stored on their intelligence systems, enabling officers from different forces to search which political events an individual has attended.

So, does this mean we are all film stars now?

Up to a point, Lord Copper. It also means that a great many people will be too scared to demonstrate for fear of how simply walking with a group of other people who seem broadly to share their viewpoint might criminalise them by default and jeopardise their careers and future.

After all, when you see someone’s mugshot splashed across the telescreens or in the latest edition of The Daily Hate, do you think, “Oh, what a lovely snapshot” or do you think “Lynch the bastard”?

Do you think, “If he’s done nothing wrong, the police wouldn’t have his details, would they? There’s no smoke without fire”?

Or do you think, “If they are doing it to him today, they will be doing it to me tomorrow. Logging anyone at a demonstration now, filming me as I go shopping or take the kids to the park next”?

Nor is it just the people who demonstrate who get caught by the magic eye of the police’s, the state’s, universal candid camera.

It shows police are interested in the names, clothing, whereabouts, and personal details of protesters and journalists. Three members of an ITV news crew, a Sky News cameraman and several photographers were among members of the press monitored as they left the camp.

Nor is the filming confined to the scene of the supposed crime, the arena of the demonstration. The police followed and filmed the journalists as they went to a McDonald’s to use the wi-fi connection to file their report.

Obviously, the internet traffic was handed over to Jacqui Smith’s [UK Home Secretary] other database state stormtroopers to handle: every text, every email, every telephone call, every internet activity logged, stored, lost, trafficked and touted to any spiv with a wodge of dosh, remember.

So, do you feel safe, now you know that you are never alone?

Now you know that Big Brother really is always watching you?

Join in at:

http://speakeasy.politicalnewsblogs.com/2009/03/07/summer-of-rage-or-seven-year-hate/

Before your government stops you.