[STEED]

Big Brother row as 400,000 civil servants win right to snoop
UK Daily Mail | September 14 2006

A vast database containing a file on every man, woman and child is being planned by the Government in a 'sinister' expansion of the 'Big Brother' state.
Personal information containing details of every aspect of an individual's life will be available to 400,000 Whitehall civil servants and council workers.
Lord Falconer has ordered privacy laws to be watered down to allow the plans to be forced through.
The plans would allow anyone working for a public body to monitor everything from an individual's driving licence record to whether they had paid their council tax on time.
Critics warned that allowing sensitive financial information to be viewed by all public bodies would leave it wide open to identity fraud. And pensioners who take stands against soaring council tax bills by refusing to pay could have their rights to pension credit withdrawn.

Information is power and power is control. The trouble is that power is open to abuse.

Police gain greater arrest powers
Sun Jan 1, 2006 9:34 AM GMT

LONDON (Reuters) - Police will be able to arrest anyone for any criminal offence, including minor misdemeanours such as dropping litter, under new laws which come into force on Sunday.
Until now police have had the power to arrest only those suspected of committing an offence carrying a sentence of at least five years in prison.
The new law requires only that the police have reasonable grounds for believing that a person's arrest is necessary. This can include a suspect's refusal to give their name and address.
The changes are part of the Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005, which removes the distinction between "arrestable" and "non-arrestable" offences.

It's a police state, granted not an out right one as I pointed out the courts are full of liberals.


To answer your other point in the early 1970's the United Kingdom join the European Common Market which in turn became the European Union, so yes we are a member of the EU.