IT'S BIG BROTHER TIME

I noted an aricle in the Sunday NY Times regarding a case in Poole, England where a young matron with three children was objecting strenuously to the violation of her privacy rights. The Poole local school officials, suspecting the lady of falsifying her home address in order to get a daughter into a neighborhood school, commenced a covert spying operation, secretly following her around and keeping a log of her and her three children's activities and even accessing her telephone billing records. It turns out she was not breaking the law and her daughter was admitted to the school. But this lady is really feeling violated and is seeking an enquiry into this situation.

Local governments in England have a wide latitude of investigatory powers due to RIPA, the Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act, which allows them to investigate without being overseen by judges or law officers. They can nail you for such "heinous" crimes as not picking up dog poop and noise pollution as well as more serious crimes like industrial waste pollution, loan sharking and false benefit claims.

England has 20% of the surveillance cameras, the CCTVs (closed caption TVs) in world operation. It seems like there is one every twenty-five yards sometimes when you are driving in England. It is truly "the surveillance society", as the Times dubbed it.

I realize the world has changed, especially since 9/11, and we all, for good reasons, have become more paranoid and anxious about our safety. George Orwell was a real prophet in "1984", warning us of the dangers of a "Big Brother" society where an omnipotent supreme authority would be regulating our lives. Most people have no idea they are under surveillance which compounds the problem. The lady from Poole only found out about her surveillance after the fact when the school authorities summoned her to discuss her school application.

We are treading on dangerously thin moral ice when invasion of privacy reaches this level. In matters of national security you can understand the need for extra precautions, but infringing on the rights of citizens with no background of criminality is a real danger zone to human rights. Let Big Brother exercise special care.