WRITTEN ON September 24th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, What do we want?

Wibbi our plans for an e-enabled society were based on creating more freedom and not more fear?

Along with freedom we mean good democracy, free speech, the right to private places and communication, and justice.

Things that create fear and will store up injustice include mass surveillance, mass data storage and retention, and the erosion of private communication (even including legally privileged communication between lawyers and clients, doctors and patients and journalists and sources).

Those of us who blog against this “system of mistrust” and spear it with our Wibbies feel connected to each other. We know just who’s well-informed and cares most about abuses with childrens’ data, identity management, or the potential of privacy-enhancing technologies.

A decade ago you could fit the people who cared about this round a small table in a pub. On 11 October we’ll fit into the first public demonstration against the surveilance state – a sort of extraordinary general Meeting with Open Rights, No2ID, Quakers and others, and with counterparts right across Europe. More thoughts and details here and elsewhere. Delighte to put a face to any UK-based IdealGov correspondents and readers there. Obviously we’ll have to be licensed, and we will be subject to endelss CCTV and video surveillance. But hey:

When men yield up the privilege of thinking, teh last shadow of liberty quits the horizon

as Tom Paine put it.* See you there!* I’m drinking my tea out of this Liberty mug covred in quotes. Another one is:

Your freedom and mine cannot be seperated

– Nelson Mandela. Except they spelt it Mandella which is why you dont see many of these mugs in circulation, and I got a freebie.