Daily Mail Comment on Travel Database

[Annie]

And the Daily Mail's editorial comment....

Fortress Britain and a gift to terrorists
Last updated at 00:56am on 15th November 2007


As if it's not difficult enough to get through our airports already, foreign travel is about to get even more exasperating.

You'd think ministers might have hesitated, after the tens of billions they've blown on a succession of IT disasters, before signing yet another cripplingly expensive contract for a computer database to keep tabs on us all.

But no. Here's the Home Secretary, blithely signing away another £1.2billion of our money for a project that threatens to turn even a day-trip to Boulogne into a nightmare of electronic bureaucracy.

With utter contempt for privacy, she's demanding that travel companies should supply the Government with up to 53 - yes, 53 - pieces of personal information about each of their customers, from credit card details to contact numbers.

Meanwhile, travellers whose answers raise suspicion may have their tickets cancelled at the airport.

Leave aside the massive cost of the extra work, which will be added to ticket prices. Think of the foul-ups, the countless ruined holidays and business trips.

Worse still, imagine the use that illegal immigrants, criminals or even terrorists could make of this wealth of personal information if it fell into the wrong hands.

Isn't there an acute danger that the new system will help the very people it's supposed to frustrate - while frustrating everybody else?

It's not only foreign travellers whose lives will be turned upside-down by Gordon Brown's plans.

No, his anti-terror package will bring all the miseries of baggage checks and searches to 250 of our busiest stations.

It'll mean exclusion zones for motorists and queues at security gates in shopping centres, sports arenas and cinemas. Meanwhile forests of bollards and concrete will be springing up everywhere.

Isn't all this wildly over the top? Everybody accepts the terrorist threat will mean a degree of inconvenience. But there must surely be a strong suspicion that the Government is scaremongering simply to soften us up for yet more infringements of our liberties.

Why, only yesterday Security Minister Admiral Lord West was forced to perform a humiliating about-turn after airing his common-sense doubts about extending detention without trial beyond 28 days.

Then there will be the debate on Labour's beloved ID cards.

A generation from now, will anyone remember what freedom was?

[SHERITON HOTEL]

Good post! ascendency to the new labour throne has finally unhinged Broon, how long before he makes the wearing of underpants on heads compulsory? johnny terrorist can blow us up in the massive bottleneck queues as we wait to get into football matches! Is it worth a letter to my MP or will that just land me on a sinister list somewhere Annie?

[Mark Gobell]

Guess who got the e-borders, "count em in and count em back again" contract?

Why Raytheon of course.

Where there's muck there's brass eh?

[Wokeman]

This is the current par for the course: MM whining about loss of liberties, and freedoms, while at the same time encouraging stronger measures to combat "terrorism". I'll paraphase an elderly foreign gent (somewhat older than I) who said something like "Anyone who chooses to exchange more security for less liberty gets neither". His name, I believe, was Benjamin Franklin. The tenant in the WH will know it!

[TonyGosling]

Excellent leader in today's Mail. Meanwhile the Guardian sleepwalks into fascism.

For anyone who hasn't already this book is essential reading on this pernicious obsession with populating the National ID database with up-to-date information on us all.
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com


Link


And for those with a more fictional bent this novel by C.S. Lewis is a real cracker on how fascist liars can trick their way into power.

C.S. Lewis That Hideous Stength