Unless you've been pot holing for the past week

Apparently we are on the brink of a pig flu pandemic, which is serious stuff considering what previous flu pandemics have done to the human population in the past.

But slightly more worrying and a one hell of a lot scarier was a small item in slipped in below the swine fever ...fever.... that seems to have passed people by, namely our wonderful and expertly paranoid government's wish to monitor all communications traffic, be that mobile phone, twitter, facebook, emails and website visits. Now to some that might seem like a good idea, and don't get me wrong I'm no conspiracy theorist or grassy knoll confirmer..... but what a lot of people don't seem to realise is that we as individuals are having our civil liberties chipped away at an alarming rate..... We have more CCTV cameras in this country than could be considered healthy, and now (like they don't already) they want to monitor who we speak to, when we speak to them and what we look at on the internet.

Now I used to eavesdrop on Ivan during the cold war, but that was a whole different kettle of fish or is that Borsch ?.... that was purely to keep an eye on what they were doing and have some kind of early warning of troop movements...you know before 3 Shock Army completely over ran us and sipped fine wine over Paris (that's France not Hilton) they did exactly the same thing to us and we watched them watching us with binoculars and spy satellites and listened to each other over crackling radio equipment.....ahhh the glory days ..... But I hasten to add we were not listening in or watching Svetlana's online video chat room.... or in fact noting that she had called the butcher six times in one evening whilst her husband was fighting off CIA backed RPG firing Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.....

It seems our Orwellian Government under the glorious leadership of Crash Gordon is proposing that they have a need to listen to every little thing we do or say to each other and have the power to eavesdrop if they so wish. Now I'm all for preventing atrocities happening such as the terrorist raids in New York and our own troubles with Islamic fundamentalism... but truly at what cost to Joe Public ? we seem to be closer to 1984 now in 2009 than ever and personally I find this an extremely worrying trend....

They cite that it will enable them to gather intelligence more efficiently.... I'm sure it will and no doubt just as local councils have abused the recent changes in law to spy on individuals for benefit fraud (both of which I find abhorrent) the law will be bent and twisted to suit until a whistle blower informs the Guardian newspaper and of course a civil liberties riot will ensue and the TSG will slap another hippy down, who in turn will make a fortune selling her story to whoever will listen via Max Clifford.......(yeah both as bad as each other in my opinion.... rolls eyes)

Anyway don't they understand what will happen ? and just like the banning of handguns in the UK it won't stop criminals from owning them.. they don't care about the law.... that's why they carry a gun (a Homer Simpson DOHHHHHH !!! ) ........

"excuse me copper, I'd like to register a permit for a .357 magnum and soft nose ammunition for pest control".......

"Rat problem ?...."

"Yeah huge ones the size of small goats ......Nah only joking I've taken up the sport of drive by shootings in Peckham...."

"Oh right you are then....sign here"


On a serious note surely (please SURELY) if they block one fairly "secure" method of criminals communicating with each other they will simply find another method of talking to each other securely, even if that means down the local pub in a quiet corner over a pint.... meanwhile the Government (I use the term loosely) will have legally unlocked a treasure trove of personal information....

all well and good but who guards the guards ???????

(If you notice that my blog isn't being updated for a few months I'm probably detained at her Majesty's pleasure in some concrete scream proof bunker at a disused WW2 airfield with a Hessian sack over my head being repeatedly asked courtesy of a JJB aluminium baseball bat if I've ever used high explosives ....... damn.... see yah ;¬) )