Angry week is over

Next week will be chirpy, positive week but before the clouds evaporate here's a comment I wrote a little while ago in response to the announcement that the government are proposing to monitor our activity on social networking sites etc - for anti-terrorism reasons obviously - not because they want to snoop - no of course not.

Who really believes that the government wants to know who we are talking to on social networking sites, but is not interested in the content of our conversations or what we share? The argument that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear is totally irrelevant. This is a fundamental breach of our privacy. It is a slippery slope from this to greater monitoring and further infringements on our civil liberties. We have recently discovered - to no great surprise - that MI6 has colluded in torture, if the security services are capable of such abhorrent actions, they are surely capable of other illegal action surrounding monitoring, which could lead to people being falsely accused/imprisoned or worse. We have also seen how data has been lost by the bucketload from government agencies. Do we want more data losses? These people are no more intelligent, competent, honest, right or forward in their thinking than you or I. They simply chose to work for the government and the state - a government and a state that we elected and we pay for, which should be accountable to us and respect our fundamental human rights. It is essential that the state serves the citizen.