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Home | Friday 24th October 2008 | Issue 652

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YER NUMBERS UP

The Government plan to massively extend the powers of state surveillance by registering everyone who buys a mobile phone on a national database. Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, votes ‘in favour of a reserve power which could only be used when there is a grave and exceptional terrorist threat’. It is hard to see how branding every phone with an identity will defend us from terrorism.

But merely arguing against compulsory registration on the grounds that it won’t stop crime, Phil Booth from NO2ID says, ‘is a bit like arguing against torture on the grounds that it produces bad information’. In reality it’s just a massive infringement of civil liberties and the act (in this case the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) is simply morally wrong.

* To take action visit NO2ID www.no2id.net



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