Is Britain becoming a 'Big Brother' state?

I have been increasingly concerned about they way our nation is going. The other week I drove from Salisbury to Hatfield to pick my daughter up from University. The awful thought dawned on me that apart from the drive from my house to the nearest main road, a full five hundred yards, every single mile of my subsequent journey was monitored on a camera somewhere. I don't believe that I was specifically watched, but the fact that I know that "they" could watch me if they so wished is very troubling. Last week a US friend of mine from myLot went and stood in front of a Camera, that is linked to a public webcam service, in her local shopping centre so that i could see her. That was a novelty but there is a sinister undertone in that if I could see her, so could anyone else. I find the ever increasing powers to snoop in my house and rubbish by local council officials worrying. According to my newspaper today I run the risk of a £5,000 fine if I deny officials a look in my dustbins. My new wheelie bin is "chipped" so that they can trace me if I fill it with the wrong sort of rubbish. The police can stop and search me even if they have no suspicion that I have done wrong. Shortly, if the Government has its way all my personal details will be encoded on a plastic identity card that I shall have to produce on demand. I am often told that if I have nothing to hide, why should I worry about ID cards. My simple answer is that I don't have one and I don't worry. Why give me angst then? Apparently it will reduce terrorism? How will restricting my liberty, and using me to compile a huge database of citizens do that? I am saddened and disappointed that we are slowly, inexorably sliding towards a Big Brother state. We will soon see neighbour snooping on neighbour. The last political regime in Europe that did that ended up starting a world war. God preserve us.

It does worry me, Mr Owlwings. If I thought all of this would be used properly and to reduce crime I may feel differently. The police still don't seem to be able to find criminals even if they are caught on CCTV and the government are very good at losing information. I thought a national ID card would be useful until I saw the information that was going to be on it. There is no longer any privacy in this country unless you're doing something illegal it seems. 1984 is just a it later than we thought.

I don't think there is any need to have so much information. I find it really difficult to do some things because I have neither a passport nor a full driving licence but with the amount of information stored from different sources, this really ought not to be the case. We are asked for so much information on the basis of security but I don't think it could be that secure if we hand over so much information about ourselves. We don't know exactly where some of the information is going or where it is being held, we are just expected to trust whomever may be holding it. I think that the recent episodes of "lost" data by government agencies proves beyond a doubt that we should not trust certain organisations but we are given no choice. After saying that, it is necessary to do something to combat crime and hold enough information to try to prevent identity fraud but I would have thought that the links between so many pieces of information would just make identity fraud easier to commit. As for the cameras and things. I think they are fine provided they are used for their intended purpose. I don't see why anyone would have a problem with them if they have no intention of doing anything wrong but maybe there should be something in place to ensure the information is not used inappropriately.

it is really a scary thing because you don't have privacy anymore. all your activities are close monitored by cameras but if it is the solution to eliminate crimes it's okay for me, unless they put a certain laws that don't violates the right of the people.

Its just like George Orwell prophesised... Its happening in the rest of Europe too, although there's a LOT of protesting going on sbout it...

My view on all of what your saying is true, but what you have to remember is that all of the information gathered nowadays is through technology, and it was still gathered years ago, but in a very inefficient way, if you break the law you should be punished, before modern tech, a police man would have to chase you up the road, now all they do is send you a summons through the door, and at least in England you are still innocent, until proven guilty, so you can plea your case, unlike so many other countries, where its the reverse, and also modern tech can, and does work in your favour, I was once accused of something I didn't do, and CCTV saved my bacon, by using all this high tech stuff, it also generates a huge amount of revenue for the government by way of electronic fines etc, by the same token, it can be a pain, to be cold called with stuff you don't want, but maybe you might, you can always stop any intrusion with a simple, but strong letter, or phone call, again you cant do that in lots of other countries. To finish, I would like to say that I am British, no I'm English, and know longer live there, I now have lived in Thailand for more then five years, and it would be of great benefit to the country, if they adopted just some of the strict, but sensible laws that the UK has...

The problem isn't the idea of having a certain amount of cameras in appropriate places to catch speeders, shoplifters, etc. The problem is abuse of that power. And, yes, we have this problem in the United States as well. I have gone back and forth on the better choice for President, and I've come to the conclusion that it definitely isn't Obama, because he's part of the more socialist mentality. McCain would have to really pull something between now and election day for me to change my thinking. If he did, I think I would just go in and write Russell T. Hartsaw on a ballot--or, I might even write my own name! Sometimes, I think that it might be better to not vote for the majority of the available candidates for different offices and, instead, vote for a bunch of white lab rats. But, seriously, this situation is VERY scary and needs to have a halt put to it. A reasonable amount of cameras looking for certain things is actually a good thing, but we need to keep our eyes open for signs that the powers-that-be are starting to go to extremes with this. It CAN become a slippery slope!

It's happening in Australia too. As everywhere converts to digital technology all our records will be on file, school, medical etc. There is no common denominator to link them though, not like a social security number like the Americans have.

I think that too much personal information is kept on computers and this is a bad idea because this can easily fall into the wrong hands like when the child benefit office lost a disk with details on it. My mum thinks one day electricity might fail and all the information could be lost. This would be terrible for banks, libraries, schools and so on. I think that shops are spying on customers spending and items that they chose to buy. I appreciate cameras put up at train stations because they improve safety. Speed cameras are yellow and some drivers know where they are so just slow when in that area. If the speed cameras were green and looked like a tree then more speeders would be caught. I think that Britain has become a bit like a Big Brother State and think that this is a shame.