''America spied on all its citizens' telephone calls, Britain is building the most invasive database ever (one the Soviets of the Maoists would have killed for, and indeed did kill for, but all the same didn't actually get), there are cameras everywhere, we are tracked and corralled and monitored as surely as any baby in a nursery playpen, and we make the mistake of believing that this is about security.
We are mistaken. Security is all about this. There was a time (was there?) when the law eisted to enshrine various rights: for example, the right not to be killed as you went about your business, and the right for rich people to tell eveyerone else to f%*k off. The rest of it - constabularies, watchmen, narks, baliffs, dossiers, interrogation rooms and so on - was there to support the implementation of the law.
Now things have subtly changed. More and more, the law exists to ratify surveillance. Governments do not enact laws and then consider how to enforce them; governments begin with the idea of enforcement, and work back to the laws that would legitimise them.''
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