If you have nothing to hide

The presumption of innocence is the greatest of all legal rights. It is the very foundation of the British legal system, yet it is under threat - not by foreign enemies ('terrorists') but from those within our borders, namely the government. How is this being done? by passing evermore laws and creating evermore layers of bureaucracy. If you needed more proof that Britain is on the slippery slope of tyranny and quickly approaching, if not already arrived at, a police state. Ask yourself what has to happen before you are convinced of this?

There will be those who say that these laws only effect criminals, and there is no chance of me ever becoming entangled in such affairs. This of course would be wishful thinking. Take for example the case of Moazzam Begg who was held for two years in Guantanamo without charge or trial. Now, he was released without charge, but frankly I don't know whether he was innocent or not, but the problem is that we never will know. If he was guilty he should have stood trial for our good and his own. This case like many others proves that Habeas Corpus has been destroyed in this country. Just in case your wondering the government can now detain us for up to 28 days without charge!

The ability to detain an individual without charge is one sign of a police state, but another one would be the invasion of the individuals privacy. An example of this would be the government's proposal of a National Database which will contain the personal details of everyone in the country. Apart from being a sever infringement on personal privacy it will also lead to more identity theft, as the government have proved on numerous occasions that it is incapable of keeping even the most sensitive of data protected. The cost of ID cards is rising rapidly, recent figures suggesting somewhere in the region of £5.3 billion. But it benefits national security - I hear you say. Even the National Database's/ ID card's biggest advocates cannot honestly think that this will be a very effective tool against terrorism? The July 7th bombers were all British so they would have had an ID card, so a bit of plastic is not going to keep us safe. Oh Osama if you can hear me your ID card is in the post.

Perhaps the most chilling signs of a police state is the torturing of individuals that the state deems as a threat. Now to be fair we outsource our torturing to different countries and we only act as a refueling stop for American torture flights, which has come to be known as extraordinary rendition .

I'm always amazed by people's ability to ignore the facts if they interfere with their own world view. I can give example after example but it won't matter if your not willing to critically examine what I have wrote and your own beliefs. This blog is becoming more iconoclastic, but sometimes that's the only way to get through to people.

Obama sucks!

There I said it.

Has the world gone mad? I know 8 years of George Bush has left the world jaded but really what's changed?

The rot of the new president's integrity has already started to set in. Not least highlighted by the recent revelation that CIA agents were carrying out torture, sorry utilising special interrogation techniques, on behalf of the United States Government. Obama has made a promise to his friends in high places that he will not prosecute the guilty parties. He has instead said that he will make such special interrogation techniques illegal. Well that's good news, oh wait wasn't torture already illegal under International law?

Don't get me wrong I wanted Obama to win. I was one of the people taken in by the tryst with history. However, I was under no illusion that the man of change was nothing more than another career politician.

It happens in all democratic political systems when we get bored of one team we vote the other one in, and it goes on and on like this. Where is the change in that?