‘Ello Guvnah! Fancy ‘Avin’ Your Rights Suppressed?

Man, things are getting scary over in the UK. Like “1984/V for Vendetta”(minus the vigilante in a Guy Fawkes mask) scary.

Somewhere along the way, England decided it was going to be the nation to test out some of the more controversial things a government can do it’s citizenry. The country is blanketed in a network of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, the benefit of which has been pretty soundly proven to be at best marginal. The UK also maintains an extensive database of DNA data, obtained from folks who are arrested for a “recordable offense”, which can include things like begging and being drunk in public.

The latest issue to erupt involves that old chestnut, music piracy. Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is proposing  legislation that would cut internet service to anyone caught illegally downloading music in the UK. On the surface, this might seem perhaps an overly harsh but otherwise just dessert (if you think downloading music should be a crime). But let’s say you like to visit whatever site has replaced The Pirate Bay for your illegal music downloading needs and you get caught. Now, in addition to no longer having access to a large variety of horrible top 40 songs to download, you also can’t do legal things, like use online government services, keep in touch with folks or express yourself in legal ways. Oh, and any family living with you is outta luck as well.

You might be tempted to say “tough sh*t,” but there are a myriad of ways this can have overly negative affects on a household and over time, a society. The days of internet as luxury are behind us. We’re in the era now of internet as necessity. The digital divide is real and its effects are tangible and substantial.

I don’t know at what point folks in the UK are going to decide they’ve had enough, but I suspect it’s not for a while. They still have a queen, for godsakes.