Big Brother is now a reality in the UK

Looks the the UK is wasting no time slipping into a totalitarian state.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5439604.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084

Now, at this point, I know many readers out there are thinking "They're only spying on criminals, doing illegal things." Unfortunately that "I'm honest, so I have nothing to hide" mentality is a trap.

Now, what specifically could carry sentences of 3 or more years that could be on someone's computer? Perhaps this has something to do with the UK's recent ban on "extreme pornography".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7364475.stm

Yes, there are arguments on both sides of the issue, but it seems to be only a short step between that and banning other types of pornography, if not other types of expression, from the internet. And this is assuming everyone in the British government has the best of intentions and only bans things that are legitimately illegal... and doesn't use these new self-granted powers to attack free speech or criticism of the government.

Oops! There goes an entire internet archive!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/14/demon_muzzles_wayback_machine/

So now that they've proven their heavy-handed draconian intentions, who's next? How many private citizens will be jailed for private possession of pornography even if they just keep it to themselves? Prior to recent years, only fundamentalist theocracies such as Iran had "morality police." Now modern democracies such as Britain can boast that wonderful distinction as well.

I have another reason for disliking this policy. I consider this an invasion of not just personal privacy, but home and property. My internet-age sensibilities are that a PC, and its contents are someone's personal property. I have no protest if the authorities were to procure a warrant to sieze and search my PC. But this is searching without a warrant by using spyware! Something that is, by definition illegal.

So, the message here is: hacking is ok if the government does it? Malware is by definition illegal, unless it's government malware? The hypocricy of this double-standard sickens me.

This is one time I'm very glad to be living "across the pond" from the Brits. No matter how bad the threats to personal liberty have been in the US, things seem to be slipping into Orwell's police state over there ten times faster. I can only hope other countries don't take a page from Britain's draconian internet bans, and that it remains an isolated example.

Remember: In the Information Wars, don't worry about what you can see... worry about what you can no longer see.