By The Way: Of Mice and Men—or Rich Tabby (1944)

The By The Way Column from the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of Mice and Men—or Rich Tabby

A Boston lawyer has left $100,000 for the maintenance of his pet cat. He has also cancelled seven bequests of $20,000 each to seven relatives “because of their contemptuous attitude and cruelty towards my cat.” (Daily Mail, August 5th, 1944.)

He left $40,000 to his housekeeper, to ensure that she is in a position to maintain “Tabby.” This reminds us of the Pekinese dog that was left a few thousand shares in a British company some years back.

The workers in the concerns where the $140,000 is invested may now have the pleasure of slaving to maintain the governor’s pet in luxury, after the bloke himself has snuffed it. This is only a difference of degree; we doubt not that the cat has far more intelligence and is much more useful than some of the “film-stars” (? !), chorines, dancers, and others whom wealthy men frequently marry, especially when one dies, leaving the producers of their wealth, the workers, to maintain and fawn upon them in ridiculous opulence. The bequeathing of large chunks of labour productivity to animals and “pets” is the final epitome of the irrational and obsolete capitalist system, where the best portion of society toils unnecessarily for a few largely idiotic parasites, to the detriment of both.

* * *

One of the Four Freedoms

From the Daily Mail of August 15th we learn that the Registrar-General announces that a complete scheme of National Registration is in preparation for use after the war.

“Under a peace-time National Register everyone throughout life would have, in addition to a name, a code number.”

This, he thinks, would abolish bigamy and be necessary for operating the new social services.

We have had occasion to point out previously, and it is no discovery of the Socialist Party, that this sort of “temporary” war-time legislation is always much more difficult to get off the Statute Book than to put on.

As capitalism is allowed by politically ignorant workers to develop further in the direction of State centralisation, it becomes more obvious that we are approaching the conditions described by Mr. Hilaire Belloc in his book “The Servile State.”

This was a state of affairs where every citizen was numbered and docketed like a parcel, and every intimate personal action supervised by a board of State bureaucrats, with endless cards, numbers, permits, etc.

This is not Socialism. A genius like Oscar Wilde was much nearer the mark when he wrote in his “Soul of Man under Socialism” that only “with Socialism could we reach real individualism.” Wm. Morris expressed the same idea.

In the early days of the working-class movement nothing in Continental despotism was so roundly denounced as the reactionary passport system. The yellow spot of the Jew was a similar measure. Labour Liberals of two decades back poured the bitterest invective on the reactionary oppression of the Tsar’s secret police, with its individual passport system. It has taken a war for the Four Freedoms to shackle the working class with the National Service officer and a code number, like a convict, for life. Socialism will not be servile neither will it be a State.

The State is a private property institution which under Socialism will wither away. Freedom will be inevitable because economic equality of all will be the basis of society.

* * *

German Women to Work Harder

From the Times, July 29th, 1944 : —

“It is announced from Berlin that as a part of Goebbels’s efforts to secure total mobilisation women and adolescents will be directed into war work to the fullest extent. Curiously enough, the German press points out that while Russian women and children served unstintingly in Leningrad during the siege, and British women work as dock labourers and in all sorts of arms production, German women have hitherto contributed far less to the war effort. Why should they be exempt, the newspapers ask, now that the German homeland is being besieged ?

One of the first changes is that women will release men for the forces by becoming motor drivers.

Goebbels issued his first total mobilisation decree yesterday. According to an announcement by the German wireless last night, the decree is aimed "at all persons liable for work who have fulfilled their labour duties in appearance only, persons who through family or other connection have obtained a labour contract enabling them to lead an easy life far away from the nation’s common strain of war’.”—Reuter.

After a terrific fanfare of the usual boloney, Goebbels is now announcing the measures to be introduced to find more men for the shambles. British readers will probably be somewhat surprised to read that one of the drastic “total” totalitarian war schemes is that women are to release men by becoming motor-drivers. Really ! Dr. Goebbels ! the poor old, worn out, effete democracies did this years ago. Apparently Mr. Bevin can give the Nazis ten yards start in a hundred at this game, and beat them any time. The stories the British Ministry of Information told us about “Hitler’s slaves” don’t sound so good any more either, if it has taken all this time for them to check up on “dodgers” (who seem to manage pretty well in England, too, if they’ve enough money), and tell the women to start driving motors.

* * *

New Curtains, Fruits of Victory

There is probably no clearer indication of the real frame of mind of the capitalist class than the advertisements which the directors of various large firms are publishing just now. All sorts of concerns are stating their post-war intentions. Motor manufacturers advertise the advent of a world with wide motor roads and better “So and so’s” cars. The I.C.I. state that their view is that the post-war world must be international. Makers of toffees and wireless sets, building societies, brewers, tobacco manufacturers, textile firms—all strike the same note.

“Bigger and Better” this, or that, is what it practically amounts to. One of the most fantastic actually says : —

My Peace Terms.

“Freedom for the oppressed people of Europe. . . . New curtains in the sitting room . . . and back to fresh butter, honey, and lovely—Cream Crackers! (Daily Telegraph, July 26th, 1944.)

One can only conclude that people who can write of “Freedom for the people of Europe” in the same breath as curtains for the sitting room have been rather seriously affected by the buzz-bomb.

The hollow mockery and revolting hypocrisy of this mentality is the strongest possible proof of the real aims of the Capitalist Government in war. They have no more concern for the people of Europe than those of anywhere else. Their idea of Freedom is a new pair of curtains.

That’s all right—as far as it goes—but when they want us to believe it’s for freedom for the oppressed people of Europe or somewhere—Well, Donald Duck has a word for it’

* * * 

“Pay Them Well”

Thus the Daily Mail for August 4th, 1944. They refer to the fighting Services. Lord Rothermere and friends are quite indignant with the Pensions Minister and the Cabinet for being niggardly with Services pay and “huckstering” about pensions and allowances.

That it is utterly outrageous that the wife of a soldier killed in battle should get less than the wife of a soldier still lucky enough to survive, the Socialist is the last to deny !

But, says the Mail with lordly (“Press-Lordly”) disdain, “A copper or two granted here, a readjustment made there is considered sufficient.”

“The costly policies initiated by the Government (free public schools, public health services, social security) are the hall-marks of the twentieth century.”

The “pay per day” method is a relic of the times when soldiers were mercenaries—mere casual labourers of the battlefields. It should be abolished, just as it has been abolished in the docks. The modern fighting man is a highly trained combatant and a skilled technician. He should be paid a salary and a good one.” (Italics ours.) (Daily Mail, August 8th.)

What the Mail calls a “good salary” for soldiers it carefully refrains from saying. We know men who would not do it for all the tea in China. Certain it is that, like working for the Socialist Party, nobody does it for what he gets in money—which is a joke, even for the officers.

Two things about the Daily Mail’s viewpoint interest us as Socialists, apart from the fact that the British capitalists, having raked in big profits during the war, feel at the moment—but only at the moment—like a man at the last course of a magnificent banquet—(“Gentlemen, you may smoke”), and are ready to chuck a pound in the plate for the waiter.

One is the statement that the “costly policies of the Government are the hall-marks of the twentieth century.” In other words, it is the considered policy of the capitalists to-day to give up a little, in the shape of reforms for the workers, to try to avoid having to surrender the lot to a discontented, Socialist, working class. As Socialist knowledge spreads among workers, and Labour leaders find it more difficult to convince them that reform of capitalism is “instalments” of Socialism, Lord Rothermere, Sir Samuel Courtauld, Lords Mcgowan and Nuffield will shower reforms, like the Beveridge Plan and More Pay, upon them to keep them occupied—and quiet. Even if it is reforms you want—which we Socialists do not—it is better to plump for Socialism.

But more important than this—the Mail points out that the one-time mercenaries who sold themselves for the King’s shilling—the “scum of the earth” of Rudyard Kipling and Billy Bennett—the old beer-swilling sweats—the “poor bloody infantry” of the past—like their civilian counterparts, the unskilled labourer, have become “highly trained skilled technicians.”

Modern fighting men, unlike their predecessors in history, are simply modern working-men put into uniform for organised scientific technical mass killing.

Some historians declare that the hired mercenaries of the Middle Ages fixed up representative conferences the night before “battle commenced” to arrange terms, and that sometimes battles did not start until the generals had agreed to “the rate for the job.” On other occasions armies just transferred during battle to the other side for more money.

But modern complicated capitalism, handling immense armies of millions at war, with colossal modern scientific equipment, can no more work on these methods than a man can pilot a plane without instruments.

Modern soldiers, or workers, in the world of 1944 are becoming highly trained skilled technicians; they are rapidly becoming producers of modern super-abundance in control of mighty complex engines which subdue and transform the forces and resources of nature—in other words, the result of the development of capitalism—is to make the working man of to-day a potential Socialist. But only potential; the ground is getting richer for the reception of the seed; the job of the Socialist Party is to implant it, deeply and firmly— it is certain to grow and multiply.

As workers and soldiers become still more highly educated, they will more easily grasp the futility of illusory scrambles for pennies or shillings extra, and fix their eyes on the real goal—abolition of private ownership—not large salaries, but what they produce. Lord Rothermere can pay as well as he likes. It will avail him nothing.

Horatio.

Open Prison (2006)

From the February 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

On January 1st, police in Britain were given sweeping new powers. Police are now allowed, if they think it “necessary”, to hold anyone they suspect of any offence – motorists who are not wearing seat belts, for instance, or who commit the felony of driving in a bus lane, or even your young ne’er-do-well who throws his fish supper wrapper away in the street. Moreover, the police will be allowed to store a digital photograph of you on a database even if you have been found not guilty of the charge you were originally arrested for.

The Home Office is changing the law because current legislation on what is an arrestable offence is, they argue, “bewildering”.  So on the one hand you have the Home Office suggesting your average cop is too daft to make his/her mind up as to what is a criminal offence, while at the same time asking the police to make an on-the-spot decision on whether or not it is “necessary” to arrest your average lawbreaker for gobbing his wad of chewing gum onto the pavement.

It’s already bad enough that Britain has more CCTVs spying on us than any other country on the planet (an estimated 300 cameras will have watched me when I get back home after a day’s bargain-hunting in Newcastle), that the British police have the biggest DNA database in the world, that your location can be tracked to within 6 feet when you use your mobile phone. But from this March, almost every car journey made in this country will be logged by CCTV and satellite cameras, and stored away for future reference on a police database.

Terrestrial and space-based cameras make it possible for the state to recognise your car number-plates anywhere you go and, we are told, quite soon they will be able to recognise human faces as well.

With 77 percent of MPs now favouring the introduction of a national identity card and the Identity Cards Bill due another vote in the House of Commons, now that the Lords have made their minor amendments, it looks as if the State – 2008 is when Labour seeks to introduce them – will soon have another means of collecting and collating information about us.

It is anticipated that eventually, as well as carrying our photos, biometric ID cards will hold iris scans and fingerprints. Moreover, the database holding all the information on our ID cards would not only be accessible by the police, but open to the immigration service and numerous public and private organisations.

Forgive me for being alarmist, but I’m betting that in a few years every single adult in Britain will have their mug-shot and their entire personal history on a police database; that the day will come when your movements will be logged the moment you leave your home in the morning.

No doubt people, like me, concerned about increased police powers and increasing state intrusion into our daily affairs will be met with the imbecilic line: “If you’re not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.” This cop-out totally misses the point. In truth this has nothing to do with our innocence. It’s all about mistrust; about the state saying we can not trust a single one of you as far as we could kick you. The state is saying you have a brain and are capable of thought, so you are therefore a potential threat to very powerful interests and consequently need to be tracked 24/7. This is the state saying they want to know everything about us from the moment we’re born until the second our heart stops beating.

When you consider the state has access to the NHS database, to info transmitted each time we use credit cards (the spy in your wallet), to info that will be contained on the coming national id cards, the info gleaned at GCHQ in Cheltenham, at the NSA base at Menwith Hill that scrutinises our phone conversations and scans our email, the info amassed by Echelon, perhaps the most powerful intelligence gathering organization in the world and sponsored by the USA and the UK, then it’s time to sit up and start worrying.

Think not? Consider also the introduction of radio-frequency identification tagging (RFID) which started in stock control and on motorway tollgates in the USA. Supermarkets are now using this technology – electronic chips that send out a code when exited – with companies like M&S and Tescos investing millions in this new spy hardware. It is anticipated that soon the chips will be small enough to be undetectable in products such as clothing, the carrier being detectable from space.

Our civil liberties are not only being eroded by the day, but the state is intruding deeper and deeper into our personal lives. You can sit back and accept it all as inevitable in this post-9/11 world and reconcile yourself to a lifetime of mind-numbing conformity, inside of your new open prison – for this is what Britain and many other countries are turning into – never daring to think an out-of-the-place thought about the system that exploits you, afraid you may accidentally commit a “crime” on your way to the shops (some security camera catching you walking on the grass or expectorating a lump of phlegm). Or you can organise with others in an attempt to wrest state control from those who use it as a means of utter oppression on behalf of the master class. But don’t take too long to think about it – your thoughts may one day not be your own.

John Bissett

Order on the terraces (1989)

From the May 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

It may seem amazing that a government that speaks so much of freedom as the present Thatcher administration does should in practice be so authoritarian and restrictive. Amazing that is to anyone not acquainted with traditional government doublespeak. The 1987 Conservative Party General Election Manifesto declared that the election mattered more for our freedom than “any election since the Second World War".

Most people would like to have more freedom whether it be money in our pockets or just fewer signs around saying "keep off the grass", and of course, this is where the politicians' rhetoric comes in. But on a practical level keeping the wage slaves in line when there is so much to complain about requires control and discipline. As a result a vast state machine has developed with the aim of maintaining "law and order" and ensuring social stability. The armed forces, police. Special Branch. MI5 and others exist to back up the legal system which protects property from 'anti-social' behaviour such as theft or criminal damage.

The ID Card Scheme

Sometimes though threats to order and stability arise which cannot be readily dealt with and require special attention. The present Government has decided that football is currently in need of some of this attention — hence the ID Card Scheme. The Football Spectators Bill, if unamended, proposes that entrance to all Football League matches and Cup matches will be restricted to holders of identity cards. The ID cards will carry a photograph and the name of the team supported by the holder and they will only be able to be obtained in person with proof of identity. Any holder of a card who is convicted of a "football related offence" will immediately have the card withdrawn for a period of two to five years. The supervisory body for the scheme, the Football Membership Authority. will also have the power to impose a ban on membership even if no football related offence has been committed.

The ID card scheme is therefore designed to keep known “troublemakers" away from matches, hopefully leading to a massive drop in violence. However, it ignores a number of important things. Foremost among these is the fact that most of the violence does not occur in the grounds anyway — it takes place outside the grounds and in the town and city centres. Rigid segregation of fans and the use of closed-circuit television has reduced violence in the grounds to low levels while organised gangs of young thugs battle it out outside. As an increasing number of hooligans don't even bother entering the grounds in any case there is absolutely no way that the proposed Membership Scheme could do what the government wants it to do — stamp out football related violence.

What is more, banning fans from grounds has not stopped them from traveling to matches in the past. The present writer has been witness to a number of instances where away supporters have been banned from a ground but have been admitted in large numbers on the advice of the police for fear of the trouble they may cause outside if they are not let in. Who is to say that those who have their membership cards taken off them will not continue to travel to matches to provoke trouble?

Daft Reform

Indeed, it is likely that the ID card scheme may end up causing more trouble than it prevents. At the moment it has been estimated that it takes three seconds for a paying supporter to pass through the turnstile. However, when the ID card scheme is introduced it is likely that the checking of the card will mean that it will take eight seconds to pass through the turnstile. If a thousand people pass through it will take them five thousand seconds longer than at present — in other words nearly one and a half hours (When Saturday Comes, No. 23)! If this is not likely to lead to crushes and crowd violence it is difficult to imagine what will. Indeed, this difficulty was partially noted in the Minister of Sport's Working Party's Report on Football — Membership Schemes, where although it was argued that photographs on the ID cards were essential, "there would be unacceptable delays if turnstile operators were asked to check photographs as well''

The Football Spectators Bill is arguably the daftest reform to be proposed by any of the Thatcher governments, and there have been many contenders for that particular title. It is so ill thought-out that it has been opposed by clubs, supporters and police alike. Outside of the Cabinet and the dewy-eyed Tory backbenchers eager for promotion at the word of Mrs T.. it has been almost universally condemned.

The reason for this condemnation has ranged from the restrictions that fans feel are being placed on them, the unworkability of the scheme which has concerned the police and the financial aspect which has worried the clubs. It will not only be costly to instal computers and the electronic card readers but as the entire scheme is likely to prevent casual supporters from attending matches it will adversely affect attendances. This will in turn affect income, and the majority of clubs who already run at a financial loss may have their very existence called into question. On a commercial level individual football clubs don't so much compete amongst themselves but compete as a whole against other sports and entertainments which have in recent years become increasingly popular at football’s expense. Discouragement of the casual supporter is the last thing that the football clubs want.

The Other Hooligans

A large part of the problem is that the government sees hooliganism that has attached itself to football as a mere aberration within society as a whole, and therefore as something which can be reformed out of existence. However, in the extremely unlikely event that the ID card scheme eradicated football violence hooliganism would only move more noticeably than it already has done to other sports such as cricket and rugby league. For although football matches provide a particular outlet for hooligan behaviour, they are not the cause of it. Capitalist society both breeds violence and sanctions its use. "Legitimate" violence such as the Falklands War or the police beating people up during the Miners' Strike is seen as entirely necessary and acceptable whereas soccer violence is something totally different which cannot be tolerated. It even used to be argued that a reintroduction of National Service would provide discipline for the hooligans and channel their aggression. The absurdity of this was shown during the 1988 European Championships in West Germany when a large proportion of the English fans arrested were in fact members of the armed forces stationed there.

Hooliganism is a product of a society which values aggression, competition and violence above peace and co-operation. It is only when this aggression gets out of hand and threatens stability that it becomes a real concern. What better example is there of the sort of ruthless competition extolled by Thatcher and Colin Moynihan. the Minister for Sport, than the frightening activities of the football mobs vying for the position of "top dogs” every Saturday?

The ID card scheme is as pathetic as it is hypocritical. The Government is not interested in the freedom of working class people and is prepared to restrict the limited freedoms and liberties that we have in a sad attempt to solve a problem which the system that it upholds so clearly threw up in the first place.

Perhaps in the light of increasing drunkenness and late-night violence we can expect the self-proclaimed lovers of freedom in Westminster to issue us with ID cards to enter pubs in future (complete of course with a photograph and the name of your local). The queues to get past the electronic card reader on New Year's Eve don't bear thinking about.

Dave Perrin

Editorial: What sort of identity? (2003)

Editorial from the December 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

ID cards are not a new idea: slave masters branded their chattel; Chinese and Russian feudal despots issued passports and papers so that peasants could not leave their allotted territory; racist regimes used them to classify their population. Of course, so have “free democracies” : the USA has had ID cards in many states for years; Germany, France and much of Europe use them. Now Home Secretary Blunkett wants to impose them on workers in Britain too.

The absence or presence of ID cards has not changed one iota the wage-slave of their possessor. Or perhaps vice-versa, since it is the cards that could be said to own the people – the scrap of plastic, the shard of paper, the scarred arm carries the revealed truth of its bearers name, address, citizenship status. Without it, the person would be nothing. If you cannot produce ID, you are presumed to not be who you say you are.

Those who support ID cards point out how we are constantly being asked for identification wherever we go: passports, credit cards, library cards, video store cards, loyalty cards, clocking-in cards; a vast array of cards to show who we are when we are asked; that we are already the possessions of a series of bureaucratically allocated identities. So why shouldn't we mind a consolidation into one, neat, easy to use identity card?

Of course, they are right. The development of commodity society has it corollary in the development of distrust. With the advancement of credit systems, electronic money and e-order of goods, the need develops to be able to seal a deal with the wax of identification. In the absence of being able to “show them the money” it becomes necessary to show who you are, so they can find you if you cheat them. Likewise, with advanced methods of distributing mass produced goods, you need a system in place to stop people just taking what they want, without handing over the moolah.

The parties to a commercial transaction come together as the representatives of property, the qualities of their property determining their respective roles – what Marx called the fetishism of the commodity, in which relations between people become relations between things. The things in question, in the age of credit, include electronic bank accounts, credit slates and memberships of service providing organisations.

The new need for identity goes further, however. Our proponents of ID cards who use the example of passports would probably be surprised to learn that less than a century ago, a person could travel most of Europe without needing a passport to move between countries. The passport became necessary with the perceived need by nation states to protect the specific patches of land they occupied from interlopers.

The new calls for ID cards follow from much the same reason, with immigration being given as a specific impetus. The authorities need to know who belongs to which piece of land, to keep them in their place. This need is given an added edge by their need to make sure that the owners of these patches of land don't spend strained welfare and benefits budgets on workers who aren't going to swell their coffers in return.

The growth of commodity culture means that the authorities, usually the state, need to be able to recognise the parties to the contract. It doesn't need to recognise them as human beings, however, but as owners of property. As potential criminals, presuming they might be lying and that they need to be watched, just in case.

Those who say “If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear” are just as caught up in the same corrosive alienation: unable to see their fellows as human beings, opportunities for advancement and enjoyment; but instead, potential robbers, threats to them and their goods. Such fears, though, are not unfounded. The wolf-eat-wolf world of commodity society, where you are what you own, pits human against human.

The issue for socialists, then, is not ID cards or not ID cards, but a society of creeping fear of our fellow women and men or a society that fosters common trust, common mannerliness and rewards co-operation rather than thievery.

ID Cards and Social Control (1995)

From the January 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Britain first had identity cards in September 1939, at the beginning of the Second World War. They were subsequently abolished in 1952, seven years after the war ended.

The official reason for their use after the war was for the easier running of the ration system and the NHS. The same personal number being used for both. Cards also had to be produced at the Post Office for certain transactions.

According to Personal Identity by C. H. Rolph:

"The police, who had by now got used to the exhilarating new belief that they could get anyone’s name and address for the asking, went on calling for their production with increasing frequency. If you picked up a fountain pen in the street and handed it to a constable, he would ask to see your identity card in order that he might record your name as that of an honest citizen. You seldom carried it, and this meant he had to give a little pencilled slip requiring you to produce it at a police station within two days.
"The system was finally abolished in 1952 after the test case of Wilcock v. Muckle (1951 49 LGR 584). This arose from the refusal of a motorist either to show his identity card to a policeman or to accept the note requiring its later production at a police station in the next two days."

The High Court accepted that the constable was within the law, but Lord Chief Justice Goddard remarked: 

"Because the police may have powers, it does not follow that they ought to exercise them on all occasions. It is obvious that the police now, as a matter of routine, demand the production of national registration cards whenever they stop and interrogate a motorist for whatever cause. Such action tends to make people resentful of the acts of the police instead of assisting them."

The powers which were available then are very similar to the ones now being asked for by some MPs and police.

Identity cards are about social control. The experience of some European countries points to the danger of minorities and dissident groups being harassed by the police. The use of card checks to identify anti-government demonstrators means that such people can be monitored and discriminated against in various ways. There is also evidence that in Britain certain groups are subject to "Stop and Search" procedures.

In this computer age the dangers are self-evident. How much information will be stored on this card? How many people will have access to it? You will never know.

The argument is that identity cards will be effective against crime. This has not been proven. The professional criminal will always find a way round it. Dr Michael Levi, Director of Criminological Studies at the University of Wales and an expert on fraud, speaking to an audience composed of police, civil liberties groups, building societies and bankers, twenty-four hours after the Home Secretary announced at this year's Tory Party Conference a further step towards the introduction of identity cards said that "in ordinary policing terms, the value of ID cards is hard to discern". He went on:

"While an ID card would have a modest effect in helping to stop some types of fraud, whether even at a pragmatic rather then a rights-based level their benefits outweigh the cost to civil liberties is an open question."

The government is testing the water at the moment to see what public reaction there is. 

Gerry Geraghty

Britain: An “Endemic Surveillance Society” (2008)

From the May 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The control freaks in power who would monitor our every movement, conversation and transaction have had a busy time of late.

This year began with Privacy International, a London based human rights group and watchdog on surveillance and privacy, reporting that Britain and the US are in the lowest category when it comes to privacy and state intrusion into our lives. Greece, Romania and Canada had the best privacy records of 47 countries surveyed by Privacy International. Malaysia, Russia and China were ranked worst.

And there has been a constant stream, in the daily press and on radical websites, of reports of new and advancing methods in surveillance technology.

On 23 February, BBC Online reported that the Home Office had rejected calls by the police to introduce a mandatory DNA database of all UK citizens, arguing that the suggestion “would raise significant practical and ethical issues.”

Already there are 4.5 million people in Britain on the DNA database, earning Britain the ominous title of the most DNA profiled country on the planet. Since 2004, the data on everyone arrested for a recordable offence (all but the most minor of offences) has remained on the system regardless of their age, the seriousness of their alleged offence, and whether or not they were prosecuted. In countless cases, if you go to court and you’re found totally innocent, they still have your DNA, a profile of your personal genetic make-up.

Not enough, say the police who, to highlight their case, point to recent solved murders thanks to the national DNA database. Right-wing reactionaries have backed police calls for such a database, citing the hackneyed argument that if you’re doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about. Which misses the point by a mile.

There’s nothing radical at the moment in the government resisting police pressure for a DNA database. They simply realise it will be one huge palaver to get DNA samples from almost 6o million people, a lot of whom will kick off big time were they to be threatened with penalties for failing to comply. Just how do you get a DNA profile on every human in Britain? For the moment they are biding their time until they come up with a better way to get around this.

So if you’re thinking that here is the British government defending our civil liberties, forget it. They're still after their surveillance society. The Guardian (23 February) for instance, told us that:

“Passengers travelling between EU countries or taking domestic flights would have to hand over a mass of personal information, including their mobile phone numbers and credit card details, as part of a new package of security measures being demanded by the British government. The data would be stored for 13 years and used to 'profile' suspects.”

One thing few us were aware of was that last summer the EU made a deal with the US Dept. of Homeland Security to provide Washington with 19 pieces of information on all passengers between Europe and the USA, including credit card details and mobile phone numbers.

Not enough, says the British government, who want the system extended to sea and rail travel, to domestic flights and those between EU countries. And is the reactionary British Labour government the only one in Europe to argue for this measure? Yes! Twenty-seven member states were questioned on whether the system should be extended for “more general public policy purposes”, aside from the alleged ‘war on terror’ and crime, and only Britain put its thumbs up. Britain further wants the authority to exchange the information gleaned, your most personal details, with third parties outside the EU.

The Daily Telegraph (7 March) reported:

“All British citizens will have their fingerprints and photographs registered on a national ID database within 10 years under plans outlined by the Government”.

The Government announced that a national ID card, carrying 49 pieces of information about us, will be phased in within two years and that millions of workers in “sensitive jobs”, like teachers, carers and health workers, will be among the first to have their most personal details stored on to the national identity register.

The first unfortunates to be targeted will be foreign nationals working in Britain and who will possibly be issued with cards from this November. Then, next year, they predict that the first British citizens will be enrolled beginning with some airport staff, power station employees and people working on the London Olympics site.

The Daily Mail (11 March) reported that some one-and-a-half-million 10 to 18-year-olds will have had their genetic profiles stored by this time next year, which strengthened arguments that the Government is moving towards a DNA database of all British adults "by stealth".

“Since 2004 police have had the power to take DNA samples from anyone over the age of ten who is arrested, regardless of whether they are later charged, convicted, or found to be innocent….But analysis by the campaign groups Action on Rights for Children and Genewatch has found that the figure conceals a far larger DNA-gathering operation, since the profiles of juveniles who have since turned 18 are no longer counted in the official total.”

Earlier, the Independent (17 February) informed us that schools will be very much preparing kids for life in the police state, where cops have increasing powers. An article on knife crime in schools commenced:

“Parents will be told that they must allow their children to be searched at any time within school premises if they want to get them into the schools of their choice, under new plans to rid Britain's classrooms of the scourge of knives.

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, will put the battle against illegal weapons at the top of her agenda when she unveils her Tackling Violence Action Plan tomorrow. The blueprint for tackling knife-related violence will include a radical move to give police hundreds of metal detectors to catch young people carrying hidden weapons in schools, clubs and pubs.”

Three days later the Independent reported that teachers had backed the introduction of metal detectors in schools:

“Although the initiative carries disturbing echoes of some US cities, where high-school pupils are routinely scanned for weapons, head teachers said it could help to tackle violence in high-crime areas. Metal detectors are still relatively rare and hugely controversial in US schools, but they have been used, particularly in rougher inner-city neighbourhoods, for at least 20 years with some success.”

This is a disturbing vision of the future. Not only does your kid get to be fingerprinted at school, as now, their details stored and their having to have their dabs scanned before even getting a school meal (as was done by stealth at my son’s comprehensive school, without the prior knowledge of parents) but they will face spot searches, yanked from class to be frisked by some over-zealous teacher, as well as having to go through metal detectors.

How long before kids are urged to report to staff on any subversive comment heard at home, being rewarded with a medal when they do? If you’re aiming on implementing a total surveillance society, then what better way than to start with kids and acclimatise them to incessant surveillance from an early age.

And if you can target kids, who are all too ready to accept the ‘wisdom’ of their elders and superiors, and who are in no position to object, then why not also target another section of society who have fewer rights – prisoners – who can be conned into having their movements monitored if they think its will result in a non-custodial sentence?

Less that two weeks after Privacy International announced that Britain was an “endemic surveillance society” we had the Independent on Sunday (13 January) reporting with a front page headline: “Prisoners to be chipped like dogs”. All that was missing was the subheading: Welcome to the police state Britain.

"In a bid to implement home curfews on the more ‘errant’ members of our society and to create more space in Britain’s overcrowded jails, ministers have come up with plans to implant ‘machine-readable microchips’ beneath the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme.

The system is already in place for dogs and cats, cattle, cars and airport luggage, for instance, so it was really only a matter of time before someone came up with the bright idea of using ‘spychips’ on humans. Said one senior minister: “We have wanted to take advantage of this technology for several years, because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing in this area…We have looked at it and gone back to it and worried about the practicalities and the ethics, but when you look at the challenges facing the criminal justice system, it's time has come.”

So much then for the battle cry of the Labour Party when it came to power: “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.” The latest move is tantamount to admitting Labour policies have failed, that crime cannot be controlled within the context of capitalism and that class inequality will forever throw up a “criminal element”.

The Independent observed:

“More than 17,000 individuals, including criminals and suspects released on bail, are subject to electronic monitoring at any one time, under curfews requiring them to stay at home up to 12 hours a day. But official figures reveal that almost 2,000 offenders a year escape monitoring by tampering with ankle tags or tearing them off. Curfew breaches rose from 11,435 in 2005 to 43,843 in 2006 – up 283 per cent. The monitoring system, which relies on mobile-phone technology, can fail if the network crashes.”

The idea now is for offenders to have tags, consisting of a toughened glass capsule holding a computer chip, injected into the back of the arm with a hypodermic needle.

It goes without saying that human rights campaigners should be the first to expostulate. Liberty’s Shami Chakrabarti commented: “If the Home Office doesn't understand why implanting a chip in someone is worse than an ankle bracelet, they don't need a human-rights lawyer; they need a common-sense bypass.”

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said: “This is the sort of daft idea that comes up from the department every now and then, but tagging people in the same way we tag our pets cannot be the way ahead. Treating people like pieces of meat does not seem to represent an improvement in the system to me.”

One company plans deeper implants that could vibrate, electroshock the implantee, broadcast a message, or serve as a microphone to transmit conversations. What is being proposed, then, in some quarters is the tasering of offenders, via satellite, from outer-space. Step outside the confines of your curfew area and ZAP! How long before we find Gordon Brown and Co. contemplating the idea of each and every one of us carrying a vein deep implant, with defenders of the idea regurgitating the old line: “if you’re doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about?”

Consumer privacy expert Liz McIntyre said: “Some folks might foolishly discount all of these downsides and futuristic nightmares since the tagging is proposed for criminals like rapists and murderers. The rest of us could be next.”

Most workers are totally oblivious to the creeping surveillance society, the full police state, where people with powerful interests to defend can track us 24-7. It is done so slowly, so subtly, that the majority of people don’t realise what is going on. Indeed, many who are cognisant of future surveillance proposals believe it is harmless and is done with their best interests at heart – so wise are our leaders. Little by little, workers are becoming acclimatised to the Big Brother Society, in which they will have your DNA, your fingerprints your credit card details… everything… Everything will eventually be known about everyone.

They’re telling us all that we are not to be trusted - none of us – and that we need to be surveilled constantly and that it is all in our own interests, for the good of society. They want our genetic profiles logged, our financial transactions, our medical history, and our telephone, email and web-surfing habits catalogued and shared with security agencies all over the world. Well, trust is a two-way thing, so why should we trust them one inch?

John Bissett