Jacqui Smith on “Protecting rights; Protecting Society”
[Hat Tip: Spy Blog and UK Liberty]
Jacqui Smith, Britain’s Home Secretary recently gave a speech on “Protecting rights; Protecting society” to Intellect, a trade association for the technology industries, in which she sought to set out the government’s position on subjects such as CCTV, the use of RIPA and the DNA database.
Smith’s speech contains numerous failings, however for lack of time for a comprehensive response, I shall limit myself to the following:
- CCTV aside, a failure to acknowledge the increasing use of blanket surveillance on the population.
- A claim she welcomes debate on the surveillance society, whilst simultaneously being dismissive of a prime opportunity to debate these issues earlier in 2008.
- A failure to distinguish between targetted and mass surveillance.
- A failure to acknowledge the increasing linkage of different sources of data about individuals in government plans, or the risks such linkage entails.
NB: The links in the above list will only work in the permalink view of this article. I’m not sure how to persuade Wordpress to do something more intelligent with them.
It seems to me these points alone seriously undermine the credibility of the speech. Those curious about other failings are referred the Spy Blog and UK Liberty responses to her speech, linked to at the top of this article, to see other topics covered. Meanwhile, I explain each of the claims made above in the remainder of this article.