Way too little, too late

"Sir" Ken Mcdonald (He's your better, you know. Show some respect when you refer to him), the head of England's Crown Prosecution Service, has taken the occasion of his retirement to lament the descent of Britain into a "surveillance society". He's warning that the overreaching Big Brotherish powers his government has obtained and continues to amass daily are a grave threat to a free society.

"He told an audience in London last night: 'We need to take very great care not to fall into a way of life in which freedom’s back is broken by the relentless pressure of a security state.'"

He was assumed to be referring about the latest "scheme" to ramp up Internet monitoring in that country. The British government wants to keep close tabs on all of the online wanderings of every one of its citizens, and threatens to greatly increase traditional surveillance methods imposed upon the peasantry such as CCTV cameras if it doesn't get its way:

"The Government is examining ways to collect and store records of phone calls, e-mails and internet traffic. Without the right to monitor the flow of internet messaging, the police and security services would have to consider a 'massive expansion of surveillance', [Home Secretary Jacqui Smith] said."

Of course, this wonderful attitude on the part of Mr. Mcdonald would have gotten much more attention and carried a lot more weight had he expressed it while he was still on the job and able to do something about the policies. But no, as is par for the course for government officials, he just took advantage of the draconian and intrusive surveillance laws to benefit him and make his job easier, and now the task of reining in the out-of-control Surveillance Society falls to the next person to take the position. If they even care, which they probably won't.

It's amazing what these government types care about, once they're no longer one of the "special people" and the most intimate details of their lives are subject to the same sort of intrusive scrutiny as the lives of the peasants that they formerly ruled.

One thing Mcdonald said is certainly true:

"'[The surveillance laws] will be with us forever,' he said. 'And they in turn will be built upon on.'"

Freedoms and civil liberties, once given away in the name of "security", are never returned by the government that confiscated them.

We ignore the sad lessons of England at our peril.