Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The front page of the Guardian presents a quite shocking report about police routinely engaging in surveillance of protestors and journalists, then uploading this information onto a searchable database.

This continues on the same thread about the relationship between the individual and the state. Civil liberties in the UK have been, and continue to be, seriously eroded by the state. You could ask “if we have nothing to hide then we have nothing to fear?” But the presumption of innocence and defence of the right to privacy should lead any rational being to reframe the question as: “if we are innocent, then why does the state need this information?” The potential for abuse is, of course, enormous. The reason why I’m worried is that if the police are able to store details of peacful protestors, build up an intimate knowledge of where they travel, where they work, who they associate with, then it is relatively easy to infringe on their freedom to protest, move around the country, or join certain groups on the basis of concerns about safety or security.

If the police do the government’s bidding and are acting to clamp down on criticism of government policy then the right of the people to hold their government to account will have been swept away.

If you think this is a fantasy, bear in mind that a government minister claimed in Parliament recently that the police’s rough approach to dealing with protestors at the climate camp in Kent was “proportionate and appropriate” in response to the dangerous behaviour of the protestors. Vernon Coaker, a junior Home Office Minister, said that police had suffered over 70 injuries. Coaker had to apologise later when it was revealed that these injuries ranged from bee stings to toothache.

Read more and watch one of the videos the Guardian has obtained here.