I don't feel right
Somebody’s watching me!
Ah, the noble nation of Democratia. All cameras and hi-tech surveillance, but for the public good, of course, because everyone needs to be watched in case one of the country’s twenty-five criminals commits a crime. The question is whether the government has ridden rough shod over the right to privacy or whether all this intrusion is necessary.
Like China, the UK is an endemic surveillance state. Like China, one government isn’t really that different from its predecessors in its paranoia about what its citizens are doing. It’s no good saying that if you’ve done nothing wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about. The implicit assumption is that the government doesn’t trust you regardless of what you’re doing. The implication is that you have no right to privacy where the government is concerned. I tend to think that such situations don’t instil feelings of safety in society and confidence in the government, but rather they produce suspicion and paranoia.
Just look at modern parents. Fifteen years ago I noted that the amount of traffic in Cambridge in the mornings would drop dramatically when it was half term. These were parents who probably walked or rode to school. But something changed and they became paranoid. Children couldn’t go to school without having perverts jumping out at them from behind bushes. Parks were places of danger. And just look at how much traffic there is on the roads (they’d say to themselves or anyone listening) without observing that they were the ones responsible for it. In other words, paranoia about a particular situation feeds off itself.
I suppose that with regard to the original scenario there is the vexatious question of the degree to which people want or expect their government to protect them. From what I can tell, the government is often being prompted by the media, which is merely interested in making money. One of the less attractive aspects of Thatcher’s time in power (and it has plenty of competition) was the role of the press in general elections. It takes hysterical papers like the Daily Mail or The Sun to turn a minor issue into a major one and, sad to say, there are enough idiots out there who will agree.
Yes, I think the state does have some responsibility to safeguard its citizens, but not on the assumption that everyone is a potential criminal.
Like China, the UK is an endemic surveillance state. Like China, one government isn’t really that different from its predecessors in its paranoia about what its citizens are doing. It’s no good saying that if you’ve done nothing wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about. The implicit assumption is that the government doesn’t trust you regardless of what you’re doing. The implication is that you have no right to privacy where the government is concerned. I tend to think that such situations don’t instil feelings of safety in society and confidence in the government, but rather they produce suspicion and paranoia.
Just look at modern parents. Fifteen years ago I noted that the amount of traffic in Cambridge in the mornings would drop dramatically when it was half term. These were parents who probably walked or rode to school. But something changed and they became paranoid. Children couldn’t go to school without having perverts jumping out at them from behind bushes. Parks were places of danger. And just look at how much traffic there is on the roads (they’d say to themselves or anyone listening) without observing that they were the ones responsible for it. In other words, paranoia about a particular situation feeds off itself.
I suppose that with regard to the original scenario there is the vexatious question of the degree to which people want or expect their government to protect them. From what I can tell, the government is often being prompted by the media, which is merely interested in making money. One of the less attractive aspects of Thatcher’s time in power (and it has plenty of competition) was the role of the press in general elections. It takes hysterical papers like the Daily Mail or The Sun to turn a minor issue into a major one and, sad to say, there are enough idiots out there who will agree.
Yes, I think the state does have some responsibility to safeguard its citizens, but not on the assumption that everyone is a potential criminal.
Tomorrow in the 61st dilemma, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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