keep digging.
Or so this Labour government believes:
The Brown government is considering a central database of all UK communications data including times and durations of phone calls, emails and internet access for every British citizen.
The draft bill is still being considered by ministers and a Home Office spokeswoman told us no decision had yet been reached.
The spokeswoman told The Register: “Ministers have made no decision on whether a central database will be included in that draft bill.” She refused to compare the proposed legislation to Ripa, as it is still only a proposal.
I am not one of the loons who believes that the UK is spiralling into a fascist/Stalinist state, but I do believe that there is now a perception that the government is going too far. They are running into a natural barrier against further moves to fight terrorism by changing the balance between security and civil liberties. The barrier is called an election.
People get used to living with threats. They did during the IRA bombings, and they have now. It may be hard for the government to accept this, since they may be blamed for not doing enough to prevent the next atrocity, but it is time that the government noticed that the public (from Daily Mail readers to Guardian readers) has started to settle on what they consider an acceptable risk of terrorism, and an acceptable price to achieve that level of risk.
