Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Hands off our fingers!

Henry Porter is in full flight at the Guardian again today, this time regarding the new gadget the police are using to check fingerprints by the roadside.

"It must be clear that if the police are demanding fingerprints today,
they will be asking for our papers (ID cards) tomorrow, a notion that
would have been unthinkable in Britain 10 years ago. Yet now we seem to
accept that the authorities have these new rights over us and that we
must simply roll over and go along with this oppressive behaviour.

Every part of me recoils from these developments. I go on complaining
and making the case that a profound change is underway which is not a
matter of debate, but of actuality. We are living this revolution. Our
apathy and complacency enables it. One day our children and
grandchildren will look back and wonder what on earth was going through
our minds; how we lost our faith in liberty, which when it comes down to
it will be the story of how we lost our self respect as citizens.

Unless many more understand what is going on with the nightmarish
clarity that afflicts some of us, and they start campaigning and doing
everything they possibly can to reassert individual rights, the fight
will eventually be lost. "

Read the original in full.

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