Extraordinary stats about snooping

By Alex Foster | Mon 10th August 2009 - 1:59 pm

Kudos to Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary, for garnering excellent coverage for the awful statistics about state sponsored snooping.

The Daily Mail’s ire is justified:

The number of Big Brother snooping missions by police, town halls and other public bodies has soared by 44 per cent in two years.

Last year there were 504,073 new cases – an average of 1,381 a day. It is the equivalent of one adult in 78 coming under state-sanctioned surveillance.

One adult in 78? I wonder who it is on my street. Which member of the Lib Dem Group in the House of Lords is it?

Obligatory Chris quote:

It cannot be a justified response to the problems we face in this country that the state is spying on half a million people a year.

The Government forgets that George Orwell’s 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint. We are still a long way from living under the Stasi – but it beggars belief that it is necessary to spy on one in every 78 adults.

LDV has been blogging about issues like this for some time – you can find a list here.

3 Comments

Jock 10th Aug '09 - 6:20pm

P’raps credit ought to be given to LPUK though for the phrase:

George Orwell’s 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint.

Whether they coined it or not, they popularized it with their campaign last autumn of sending a copy with exactly that written in each one to every MP.
mcurran 10th Aug '09 - 9:53pm

Anyone interested in these issues may be interested in this:
QuestionTime on Civil Liberties and Surveillance
Bourne Hall, Ewell,Surrey, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 7.30pm
On the Panel: one MP from each main party, Phil Booth of NO2ID
Entry free, plenty of room in hall, for further details email [email protected]
simonsez 11th Aug '09 - 10:34am

@mcurran
Wouldn’t it be good if the TV Question time took a serious interest in this issue.
( and the environment too )
I will look at the no2id website for northern events.