We pay for MPs expenses with our liberties

653 state agencies will be able to snoop on every phone call you make, website you visit or email you send. When was that in any election manifesto?

Telecoms firms won't merely store such personal data for a year. Working within each one are teams of state snoopers, whose job is to pass the information out to government. These "security cleared" employees within private telecoms companies even have their salaries met by government - a sort of stasi.com.

And at no time will the hundreds of quangos able to access this data - from your local council to the FSA - need the permission of a magistrate to obtain information from them.

There was a time when our Parliament acted to restrain government, her instinct to rein in overbearing officials.

Yet a generous expense system has put more MPs on what amounts to an expanded payroll. With 7 out of 10 MPs coming from "safe seats", many MPs answer inward to SW1, rather than outward to voters. Thus do most MPs see their job as defending officialdom, not holding it in check.

With the Commons moribund, the state grows.

Posted on 10 November 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

So do tell us what you intend to do about it? I see a lot of posturing from MPs but very little action - perhaps you can outline what you plan to do about IMP and other issues (such as statutary instruments)? Furthermore, what about commercial snooping for behavioural advertising such as Phorm? I am genuinly interested in hearing about your plan of action.

Posted on 10 November 2009 09:45 by Alexander Hanff

How is it that the public roll over and accept more, and more and more restrictions on their freedom.

I contrast this with the daily stories of stupidity vis a vis health and safety.

Here is an idea for the Heir to Blair. Introduce a law making it compulsory to substitute the word 'Freedom' for 'Health and Safety' in all public and private institutions and make those now responsible for 'health and safety' instead 'responsible' for freedom.

Two birds with one stone.

Posted on 10 November 2009 10:14 by wonderfulforhisage

Alexander Hanff asks what my plan is to do something about it.

Well, Alexander, I wrote a book that sets out The Plan, in some detail.

Step 1 - end MPs perks
Step 2 - remove Speaker
Step 3 ....

You can read the rest if you click on the button on the right - >

Posted on 10 November 2009 10:24 by Douglas Carswell MP

This is truly abominable. I think it is time we had a proper Constitution. An unwritten constitution is fine as long senior members of the Government are honourable, but it is worthless against the corrupt layabouts we have in office at the moment.

Posted on 10 November 2009 11:33 by Chris Rose

It amuses me to see the great and the good in Berlin celebrating the demise of East Germany. See if you can name the country where:

Ballot Boxes are interfered with
Voting registers go missing
The Police can kill innocent people and get away with it
You can be put in prison for 42 days on pure suspicion
You can be put in prison indefinitely without charge on the word of a politician
The State can torture people
Your children are monitored at School by Political Officers
Their behaviour is logged on a State database for their entire lives
Your innocent fingerprints, iris scans and biometrics are held by the State
You do not have the right to remain silent
You are watched on 4 million CCTV cameras
You may not photograph the Police
The media is controlled by the State
You do not have the right to protest peacefully
Curfews exist for entire communities
Your travel movements are logged and monitored
Who you vote for is logged and monitored
Your shopping habits are studied and logged by the State
Your emails and telephone conversations are recorded by the State
Your passport can be withdrawn at the whim of the State
Government agencies can use lie detector tests on you.
166 "Authorities" can now legally enter your home.

Posted on 10 November 2009 12:25 by Old Holborn

China already operates like this, it's the methods of tyrants, it's the chosen ways of the elite within communist circles.

It's fascim Douglas, where the state and corperates become one. Where the few do not govern but rule without consent.

Posted on 10 November 2009 13:33 by chris southern

The Tories aren't clean on the snooping front, either.

Cameron says he'll roll back the surveillance state, only to discover that Harrow Council (one of many such Conservative-controlled) is to roll out a plan this week that mobilises 2000 civilian snoopers for every 100 residents.

http://bit.ly/34UCPy

Cameron should realise that he will be judged not by his words, but by his deeds.

After the Lisbon U-turn, he ought to realise that the country is short on trust, and rightly so.

Posted on 10 November 2009 14:14 by http://faustiesblog.blogspot.com

Why do the Politicians expect us to trust them when they don't trust us? Especially as they always manage to exclude themselves from all the laws they impose on us.

Old Holborn - You forgot to mention the brainwashing ("Climate change" propaganda, and all other Government advertising)

Posted on 10 November 2009 15:15 by Mick Anderson

Perhaps a good start would be a Bill right at the start of the next Parliament that repeals pretty much every single intrusive bill passed since 1997. No ID cards, no RIP act, right of demonstration and freedom of assembly restored, removal of all those rights of entry, restoration of right of silence, detention without trial reduced back to what it was etc.

Then any agency that wants something brought back can ask nicely and provide a full justification and let the people decide whether to allow them that control in a referendum.

If not a proper constitution (and I doubt if the people trust Parliament to produce one that favours the people over the state at the moment), we need a Bill of Rights clearly defining things that the government either cannot do, or that needs a 2/3 majority of the electorate (not turnout, the full electorate) to agree to a change.

To reform Statutory Instruments, without a complete bogging down of the process, once a year at either the start or end of a session in Parliament, all SIs since the last time should have a statement for and against and a vote of the full house to validate it, otherwise it lapses and cannot be recreated without the approval of the House.

Posted on 10 November 2009 16:06 by David Hough

I can see there might just be possible arguments for keeping such information, but there is no way that I can envisage 653 state agencies who have a genuine need to have access to such data. If it were just the police and security services, after authorisation by a magistrate or judge, it might just be acceptable, but 653 organisations, absolutely not!
The "OTT" use by local Councils of powers given in anti-terrorist legislation to try to catch parents sending children to the wrong school, or to catch fly-tipping is totally disproportionate, and I've no doubt there will be a Council somewhere who decides to use these new powers for similar purposes.
Will I be spied on because my young grandson comes to stay "too often", and some official thinks perhaps we are baby minding or trying to get him to a school in our catchment area? Will my daughter & son-in-law have their e-mails checked for the same reason? It's all getting totally out of hand.

Posted on 10 November 2009 16:53 by Brian E.

I am agreeably surprised to read here so many interesting and perceptive comments on the steady decline of freedom in the UK. I found too similar views in a book review group I went to for the first time this month. So, how are we to recover our liberty? It is too much to hope that there are enough MPs willing to defend our freedoms so what is the next course of action? The elective dictatorship we have which goes under the misleading term democracy has not done much for us over the past ten years and no political party has subscribed to the ideas suggested by David Hough so Douglas, it is over to you as our elected representative, How is the voice of the people to be heard in this land?

Posted on 10 November 2009 18:03 by John

I gave my name at the age of 14 to MI whomever on a CND march quite freely. Accompanying marchers who has sort of adopted me were in horror.

When, in 1971 ish I applied for a job in the security industry my "record" was known but pretty much ignored.

It was just a waste of money to keep such a record, and still so at the time of the '70s Miners' Strike I gathered from my Tory MP.

My freedom has not been infringed at all by any of this.

We live in a country where the state has been particularly effective in circumventing terrorism by islamo-fascists.

Co-operate, please.

Posted on 11 November 2009 22:23 by Quietzapple

I am gratified to learn that Quietzapple has not suffered for his/her "record". However, it would be wrong to presume from this that this is everyone's experience. Those arrested under anti-terrorism law for legal protests; those arrested and punished by judges for reading out the names of our dead heroes under so-called serious crime laws, and those beaten up by some of London's police officers when they were innocent bystanders to demonstrations have not enjoyed the same reasonable treatment.

Posted on 12 November 2009 14:45 by John

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