Introducing Scaryland - somewhere in Britain. by Derek Bennett What happened to municipal pride? In days gone by our local councillors gained prestige through building grand municipal buildings and creating amenities such as parks, swimming baths and other things their local residents could enjoy. The Victorians were extremely good at this and through their efforts the quality of life improved greatly for the people they served. They built sewers, schools, hospitals and helped to improve the health, lives and education of the residents in their town. The more they did the more their towns prospered and their prestige improved greatly. We have a lot to thank our councillors of old, they were unpaid and they gave their time and knowledge willingly - they really did understand the meaning of public service. So what grand municipal projects are our paid modern councillors and councils involved in today to help improve the quality of life for those who elect them? Well, if snooping is a municipal project then that’s what our councils are up to. We no longer have Councillor Bond, we have James Bond with a clipboard monitoring our every move. The baddies to be spied on these days are not Dr No, Scaramanga or Blofeld, they are us, that is you and I the ordinary British subject. And our crimes which have to be monitored? Well, there are serious environmental crime which threaten world peace and global security such as leaving our dustbin lids ajar, putting recyclable waste in the wrong bin, allowing our dogs to leave a mess behind them (which is annoying). There are other crimes such as parents wanting the best for their kids and attempting to get them into the best performing schools which may be out of their catchment area, smoking in or drinking in public places, littering and so the list goes on. Because of this, and thanks to some draconian new laws invented by our increasingly neurotic Government aimed at fighting terrorism, councils throughout the land will be given the right to bug our telephone calls, snoop on our e-mails and use covert tracking of our movements – the British people are now such a danger to the authorities that they have to be watched and monitored night and day. All this spying of dear old Mr & Mrs Jones and just about every other ordinary person, comes about courtesy of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). The Home Office, another public body who at one time used to see its function in life as serving the British people, who now think the British people should serve it, wants to extend the powers of the state and councils to snoop over us. It now wants powers to have access to web-sites and e-mail accounts as well as calls made over the internet. There is an EU Directive 2006/24/EC which covers the retention of communications data and there is a fear that councils or quangos could use private e-mail accounts or internet phone records to snoop on taxpayers. There was a time we in the UK thought we lived in a free land – these days, thanks to the mass of powers given to our once public servants, we now live in scaryland! Posted by Derek Bennett EU-Sceptic at 16:44 0 comments Links to this post