David's Daily Diversions

Nowhere to Hide

The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has announced that the Government is planning to tag released sex offenders. The tags will be monitored by satellite, so that the whereabouts of the convict will be known at all times any where in the world.

This a bad thing. Yes, I know everyone thinks of sex offenders as the lowest of the low and that they should all be strung up. And in the current environment, "sex offender" principally conjures up the image of child sex offender, the lowest of the lowest of the low. How could anyone think that any restriction placed on these people be challenged?

But sex offenders are just the easy target of the Government. They provide a means for implementing the first stage of its overall plan to tag all offenders and ex-offenders. This way, they can prove where the tagged individuals are at any time.

This is just another step toward a total surveillance society. Other aspects of this have been detailed in this blog from time to time. It's ever multiplying CCTV camera (I absolutely marvelled at the number I casually observed on the highways whilst driving back from London on Thursday) and road sensors linked to microchipped cars. This used to be the stuff of crack-pot conspiracy theories. Now this Government (and others such as the US Government, with it's all-access Patriot Act and Patriot Act II) are open about plans to keep tabs on the unwashed masses. It's not just criminals - we have to remember that anyone might be a terrorist or at least a supporter of terrorism.

Think the idea of limited government is rapidly becoming an historical concept.