WRITTEN ON December 4th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, Transformational Government, What do we want?

Hurrah for Hammarberg. This just out from the European Commission:

Strasbourg, 4 December 2008 – “Freedom has been compromised in the fight against terrorism after 11 September. Government decisions have undermined human rights principles with flawed arguments about improved security” says the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, on the eve of the publication of his issue paper on “Protecting the right to privacy in the fight against terrorism.”

“Not only terrorism, but also our reaction to it pose a long-term, engrained threat to human rights. The time has come to review steps taken to collect, store, analyse, share and use personal data” said Commissioner Hammarberg. “Data protection is crucial to the upholding of fundamental democratic values: A surveillance society risks infringing this basic right.”

“In the war on terror, the notion of privacy has been altered” he continued. “General surveillance raises serious democratic problems which are not answered by the repeated assertion that those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. This puts the onus in the wrong place: It should be for States to justify the interferences they seek to make on privacy rights.”

Hey brother H: I think you speak my language. The time has indeed come.

Meanwhile, in the “Don’t Get It” HQ of the UK they’re stubbornly heading off in thte opposite direction, says the Indie:

The Big Brother state – by stealth

Thousands of unaccountable civil servants given access to our most intimate
personal information

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor
Thursday, 4 December 2008

Personal information detailing intimate aspects of the lives of every British citizen is to be handed over to government agencies under sweeping new powers. The measure, which will give ministers the right to allow all public bodies to exchange sensitive data with each other, is expected to be rushed through Parliament in a Bill to be published tomorrow.

The new legislation would deny MPs a full vote on such data-sharing. Instead, ministers could authorise the swapping of information between councils, the police, NHS trusts, the Inland Revenue, education
authorities, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, the Department for Work and Pensions and other ministries.

The data-sharing measure is referred to in the Coroners and Justice Bill outlined in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech…

But…but…but…is this what we pay you for? Aren’t you meant to be the servants not the masters? Didn’t you notice that the control model of security failed? Didnt you notice that CRM never delivered it s promises? You may be children of God, my dear government and officials, but you need a sharp kick up the backside and a Damascene conversion. Hey – you should go and see Ivo’s new movie! That would be a good start.