The Real Big Brother, 2009

Before you think I have nothing else to do than to mope around and watch the drivel that is Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4, a show which dumps people in an artificial house which is placed under twenty-four hour surveillance, supposedly for the general public’s viewing pleasure, it’s not. Unfortunately it’s actually a lot more serious, akin to Orwell’s 1984.

Rules forcing internet companies to keep details of every e-mail sent in the UK are a waste of money and an attack on civil liberties, say critics.

From March all internet service providers (ISPs) will by law have to keep information about every e-mail sent or received in the UK for a year.

Human rights group Liberty says it is worried what will happen next.

The Home Office insists the data, which does not include e-mails’ content, is vital for crime and terror inquiries.

Some three billion e-mails are thought to be sent each day in the UK.

BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7819230.stm), Friday 9th January 2008

So the government now plans to store details of every single E-mail that is sent in the United Kingdom through the country’s ISP servers. This is alleged to be vital for crime and terror inquiries.

What on earth is going on in this country? With the ID cards, an infinite number of CCTV cameras, a DNA database and now the government snooping on every E-mail being sent, the government really are trying to curb every last right to privacy we have. The devils advocate would say that “if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide”. Frankly I am sick of this argument because it reverses one of the traditions that we fight so hard to preserve — innocent until proven guilty. It seems we’re getting closer to a world where we’ll all be guilty until proven innocent.

Besides, I wouldn’t want data about every E-mail I send to be stored on a CD that goes missing in transit…