Greens condemn rise of Big Brother state
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The Information Commissioner's recent warnings against a "surveillance society" are just the latest of concerns about further decreasing civil liberties in a society that monitors its citizens more closely than any in Britain's history.
Through mandatory ID cards, increased powers of arrest, tracking children and extensive information gathering, the government have been curtailing civil rights and freedom of movement.
In our growing surveillance culture data protection laws are often broken; that is when they are not circumvented by new legislation. This must stop now if we are to restrain the government from gathering as much informationas it can on the population.
We need further clarification and information regarding the nature and extent of personal information which is collected and retained, plus the reasons why such large amounts of information needs to be recorded. Government must also tell us which bodies have access to our personaldetails in order to prevent the abuse, including by hackers, of expanding databases across the country.
Janet Alty
Green Party Responsibilities and Rights spokesperson
