Wednesday 15 October 2008

Do not go gently........

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

Niemöller's poem was written in a Nazi Germany where secret police encouraged neighbours to spy on each other and to inform on those who might have "anti state" views. This continued under communist oppressors in Eastern Europe until the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Despite our knowledge and understanding of this terrible history we're again seeing civil liberties being threatened by a government obsessed with collecting and storing information about the behaviour of its citizens.

The UK government is planning to create a database to store details of every telephone call, email and Internet visit in the UK. They plan to do this in our name and hide behind claims that it's for our safety.

2 careful considerations:

ChaikiLi said...

We are already seeing the results of this kind of invasion of our privacy here in the States. The inability to hear our president speak in person unless you can be vetted as a member of his party. The inability to enter public buildings without a search of your possessions and a walk through a metal detector. You cannot even get on a plane with a bottle of water and I have lost posessions because of searches of my bag by federal staff (though one time they did replace my soap with a gps map for my car). I feel the loss of these rights. Please fight for yours.

Echomouse said...

Oh, another Carrie....freaked me out for a sec. I thought "wait....I was here already?" lol

Okay, this news is SCARIFYING! It was bad enough when the USA did it. If the UK is going to do so, that means Canada is next. We seem to be following along behind, taking longer to catch up but still making the same stupid decisions. I wish we had elected a better government.

Is this a done deal for you guys?