Data - The 'State' And The Individual

A new report by Ben Hayes, of Statewatch and Transnational Institute, has been issued and can be read here.

From the report three quotes:

"It envisages a future world of red zones and green zones; external borders controlled by military force and internally by a sprawling network of physical and virtual security checkpoints; public spaces, micro-states and ‘mega events’ policed by high-tech surveillance systems and rapid
reaction forces; ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘crisis management’ missions that make no operational distinction between the suburbs of Basra or the Banlieue; and the increasing integration
of defence and national security functions at home and abroad. It is not just a case of “sleepwalking into” or “waking up to” a “surveillance society”, as the UK’s Information Commissioner famously warned, it feels more like turning a blind eye to the start of a new kind of arms race, one in which all the weapons are pointing inwards. Welcome to the NeoConOpticon."



"We need to take very great care not to fall into a way of life in which freedom’s back is broken by the relentless pressure of a security state. We need to understand that it is in the nature of state power that decisions taken in the next few months and years about how the state may use these powers [of surveillance], and to what extent, are likely to be irreversible. They will be with us forever. And they in turn will be built upon. We should imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we can’t bear.

Ken Macdonald, (outgoing) UK Director of
Public Prosecutions, October 2008"


"Once enacted, the kind of security apparatuses described in this report will be very difficult to unravel. A decade of counter-terrorism and surveillance-enabling legislation is seen by policy-makers not only as here to stay, but merely the beginning of a revolution in law enforcement. Yet while the scope for state intrusion into private life and public space has changed beyond all recognition, the oft -promised revolutions in government accountability have largely failed to materialise, especially at the EU level."


84 pages in length, but just what you need when there is only rubbish on the box!