CCTV in England, ID Cards and the Big Brother State

In 1949, George Orwell released his novel called "Nineteen Eighty-Four". The novel told the story of Winston Smith, a minor bureaucrat in the totalitarian state of Oceania where privacy has vanished and all Party members are observed by two-way telescreens and there are posters everywhere proclaiming; BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU (the book actually coined the phrase 'Big Brother'). Over 50 years after the publication of 1984, Britain has started to imitate the State of Oceania.

If you live and work in London chances are you are being caught over 300 times a day on Camera . Britain has the highest number - per person - of CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) cameras in the world including countries with a much higher crime rates such as the USA. There are CCTV cameras on the Underground, buses, shopping malls and our high streets. It is estimated that there are over four million CCTV cameras in the UK, one for every 14 residents. Since 1994, the Home Office has spent a staggering 78% of its crime prevention budget on CCTV cameras.

On Identity Cards
The Blair Government recently introduced the Identity Cards Act 2006. This means the government has the power to introduce identity cards in stages.The first phase will include biometrically updating passports and driving licences - including fingerprints, eye or facial scans. A voluntary ID card will then be introduced in 2008 and people applying for passports will have their details put on the national identity register. From 2010 people applying for passports will also be issued with an ID card. The Civil liberties group Liberty have argued that these measures will worsen harassment of ethnic minorities and provide another pretext for stop-and-search (reintroduction of the old 'suss' measures) often directed at black people in particular. The original pretext for introducing the ID cards was the war against Terror. The Home Secretary argued that Identity cards would make it harder for terrorists to enter the UK and adopt false and multiple identities. All the four suicide bombers killed on the Public Transport system last year on 7 July were British Citizens.

Are these measures actually going to make us safer or are we just giving up our civil liberties in an effort to 'feel' safer?