The Independent has a terrifying story, if there is no public outcry over which, I have no hope for the short-term survival of liberty in Britain. Perhaps it is just our turn to live under totalitarianism, and our children’s and grandchildren’s too (assuming liberati and other anti-social types are permitted to breed in the well-ordered society) …
Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.
Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.
Read the whole thing here. Then answer me this question: by what right is this power assumed? It is no doubt being done in the name of ‘public safety’, in which case where’s the democratic mandate, and when was parliament asked?
Cross-posted to Samizdata
What makes you think that they need Parliamentary authorisation? Parliament votes the Crown a money bill each year. Anything not hypothecated in the bill, the Crown is free to spend as it likes. It’s like when your parents gave you pocket money, except that your pocket money would never quite stretch as far as taking away the privacy of everyone in the UK.