Perhaps it was no coincidence that April Fools day was the day reports appeared warning us that the government were planning to further enhance the laws that allow them to watch what we all do online. Governments all over the world have always wanted to be able to track their citizens and know what they think. Now, it looks like the UK government will make it lawful to do something that Hitler would have given anything to be able to do.
The government are intending to enhance the requirements on internet providers to track every move you make online and allow police and government access to that information. No longer can you think out loud. In future you will have to keep your thoughts to yourself and never breath a word online if you are critical of the government. The simple fact is that if the government want to know what you are saying to anyone, they can.
The old argument that if you have done nothing wrong you will have nothing to fear, is being regurgitated and used to justify this reduction of freedom of speech and while it may be true now, who is to say what could happen in the future. The Home Secretary, Teresa May, has said in a newspaper article that the only people who need fear this change are terrorists, pedophiles and serious criminals. She would say that, wouldn’t she.
You can currently be jailed for saying offensive things online, as has happened on a few occasions recently. In the future you need to be careful what you say to your brother, mother and even your Grandad in emails or even in private chat rooms. The only safe place for your thoughts will be inside your head just as it was in Stalin’s Russia and Pol Pots Cambodia.
Of course the Government will tell us they need to be able to access this sort of information to prevent terrorism. It always was the case. If the government of the day had been able to listen in on Guy Fawkes conversations they might have caught the plotters at an earlier stage but Britain is proud to be a democracy isn’t it? If we are not a free country then what is the point in defending it.
Back in the 1930′s a government came to power in Germany with a very firm view on what the state should be able to do. They proceeded to track down everyone of Jewish blood, Romany Blood, Gays, Communists and anyone who opposed them. These people were arrested and transported to concentration camps to rot, or be killed.
The only limiting factors in their purge of the countries under their control was the lack of a proper system to locate and track down there opponents so that they could achieve their aims of wiping out entire sections of the population. They justified their actions by claiming that the groups they were arresting were terrorists trying to destroy society.
The reasons for their behaviour have a familiar ring to them and while nobody is suggesting anything like the purges of Germany prior to and during the second world war the government are setting in place the facilities and totalitarian any future government far greater abilities to track and read the private emails and conversations of individuals in the UK.
The intentions may be genuine and well intended but the potential risks are enormous and whilst terrorism is a very real threat it is important that any government claiming to be defending Britain should consider what it is they are supposed to be defending. We have a reputation for freedom of speech for which we should be proud but in recent years there have been more and more restrictions put in place to control what people can say in public.
We should never forget that democracy is a very fragile thing that could be destroyed bit by bit and this would seem to be another nail in its coffin. We may not pay much attention to what seem like small and sometimes insignificant changes. But often happens slowly.
The words of German Pastor Martin Niemöller, who was imprisoned in the notorious Dachau concentration camp, should be at the forefront of the thoughts of government ministers.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
Pastor Martin Niemöller 1945
