My Dearest Government,
It is really quite simple. Sometimes you suggest things which will infringe our privacy and our rights.
The average person will not like the idea of such things, but you will try and persuade us (and parliament) that they must happen for very good reason, and these laws will only be used in the extreme circumstances they were intended for, with lots and checks and balances.
Now, and here is the important bit so pay attention, when you use this very legislation for something completly unrelated to what it was intended for. Let’s say, oh just for example, using Anti-terrorism legislation on UK based assets of a small country because you don’t like they way they are handling a money problem, then our trust in you disappears. Completely.
And if you can’t be trusted not to mis-use that, what hope have we that your plans to monitor every phone call and email will not be abused, when you feel there is a great enough need?
One response to “Whale hunting terrorists”
An abuse-able law is a bad law, and an abused law is a good candidate for removal.
On a similar note but a smaller scale, the Cambridge police recently seized the Council’s CCTV footage under the Terrorism Act, in order to count homeless people in the city center.
Crap law, let’s be rid of it!