Simon Jenkins signed off from his Sunday Times column with a spankingly good piece last weekend:
Is Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, a pocket dictator? Is there no drop of liberalism in her veins, no concept of personal freedom, no fear of a repressive state? Or is she just another home secretary? This month she apparently felt obliged by dark forces beyond her control to add another weapon to the armoury of illiberal power. She wants to record at her Cheltenham communications headquarters every mobile phone call, text and internet message of every Briton living. This is close to madness.
Home secretaries always speak with forked tongues…
Each new repressive law is abused, sometimes blatantly. This month Gordon Brown used the 2005 antiterror law to seize the assets of Icelandic banks, an outrage that passed without protest from parliament or the courts. The same law has been used by local authorities to monitor school catchment areas and rubbish disposal.
Each new repressive law is abused, sometimes blatantly. This month Gordon Brown used the 2005 antiterror law to seize the assets of Icelandic banks, an outrage that passed without protest from parliament or the courts. The same law has been used by local authorities to monitor school catchment areas and rubbish disposal.
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