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UK Government Plans 10-Year Database of Citizens' Travel
moderators_are_w*nke writes "The UK government is planning yet another database to track its citizens, this time keeping track of their movements in and out of the country for ten years. Just like all their other databases, this one 'is essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration and [of course] terrorism.'" I'd be very surprised if the US is not already doing this, and just not making a point to let anyone know.
... that they're not already doing this.
I believe Canada does it. When I returned to Canada last year from one of my trips, the guy at the border swiped my passport, looked at the computer screen, and commented on how much I travel. He hadn't even looked at all the visas and stamps in passport.
The US has definitely been keeping track of everything for years. When I went for the final interview for enrolment in the Nexus programme, the US immigration guy swiped my Canadian passport. After a while he asked me what happened at Detroit in Oct 2000. I'd been refused entry whilst travelling on my British passport, before I had Canadian permanent residency and long before citizenship, but he'd connected my two passports.
Fear of the police? Not yet. Just the other day I read this in the Guardian:
"On the canal bridge just behind Kings Cross, a policeman took a huge snowball full in the face and - I couldn't quite believe this was happening - giggled delightedly (it must have really hurt). His three colleagues gathered snowballs and pelted the mob of school boys and girls, quite sensibly avoiding head shots (think of the lawsuits). But they were outnumbered and outgunned. And anyway, they were easy targets, these coppers in their fluorescent jackets. And the school children, those alleged dysfunctional products of our greed-obsessed, low-serotonin, broken-homed, intolerably lardy, TV-ruined society, were in a snowy wonderland where there was no school, no rules and nothing to worry about. I've never seen London secondary school kids look filled to the brim with such girlish glee. "See if you can knock his helmet off," I yelled at one girl (which probably made me an accessory to something but I don't care: the delirium is infectious) and she pitched a curve ball that would have hit had the copper not ducked."
Now, while I, like any right-thinking British citizen, am extremely worried about our government's incessant control-freakery, there is a huge amount of goodwill towards the police in this country, who for the most part have a history of being decent and even-handed. This is because they're an implement of the people, not of the state, and have always been operationally independent from the judiciary and the government. From time to time certain factions of society have their run-ins with them, but by and large they're seen as being "on our side". Sadly this is being steadily eroded by the current government, and at this rate it won't be long before people turn on them completely.
The police generally can't carry guns. And the whole reason why they neither have them nor want them is because that would give them powers that ordinary people don't have. There are armed response units which are called out for firearms-related incidents, but these guys spend most of their days sitting around doing nothing.
And of course, ordinary people can have guns if they want them. It's just strictly controlled.
Under present laws, eg. Terrorism Act 2000, people can be held incognito for up to 30 days. In other words, you just disappear. People think you are dead. They would most likely call the police. This only happens to terrorists, of course. Right?
Well, actually it happened to me. 36 hours inside. For two nights my girlfriend thought I was dead. She was indescribably upset about it. This is how it goes. What did I do? I took some photographs in the centre (yes, this is the correct way of spelling "center") of town with my mobile phone and some dork behind one of those ridiculous cameras thought I was taking a picture of a manhole cover which could be used for terrorist activities.
I'm not making this up: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1213934526/bctid5172505001
Whist tracking down tax avoidance is good, I can't help feeling they could save us a buttload more money by getting rid of all their surveillance crap and cutting deeply into public spending.
Make the UK a genuinely low-taxed capitalist country (as it damn well should be, even with the NHS) and the rich won't feel as much need to evade.
warrentless wiretaps of ALL calls, domestic and international.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/12/first-interview-nsa-whistleblower
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=msnbc&vid=297abdd5-d0dc-4617-a6c9-c482fa316b59
They copied EVERYTHING, INDISCRIMINATELY, FROM EVERYBOSY, and then passed a 'law' giving the telecoms retroactive immunity.
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/countdown-12209-fmr-nsa-agent-communications-rights-ignored/2733120647/descr