Centuries do not always neatly fill into their appellations. The 19th century lingered on in many respects until the guns of August 1914. The 21st century came in on the button with the events of September 11, 2001. The response by the Americans, and the British was to embark upon a "War on Terror" in pursuit of which the rights and liberties of law-abiding citizens have been encroached upon in a manner that is more characteristic of the Stasi in the former East Germany than of any western democracy. This intrusion into the privacy of people's lives has been given an added impetus with the recent advances in technology.
It is calculated that each individual is photographed by CCTV cameras several hundred times a day, in any town or moderately sized city in these islands. People are told that if they are not doing anything wrong then they have nothing to worry about. In fact, people have quite a lot to worry about. At one time, the confidentiality between doctor and patient was as sacred as the seal of the confessional. In recent years, there has begun a move by the state to have access to people's medical records and general state of health. It was reported last week that a group of doctors in Britain were refusing to co-operate, because they were not being paid well enough for their co-operation.
Powers now exist for police to demand a DNA sample from people who have been arrested, often on the flimsiest pretence, in connection with an offence. Even when an individual is eliminated from any enquiry, the DNA material is not excised from the file but is retained, and put on to a database. In the United Kingdom there are something like three million names on this police DNA database, including the names of many people who have committed no offence. The potentiality for injustice here is immense: by accident, or by design, data from these DNA banks can come to frame a case against an innocent suspect and will be regarded as a damning piece of evidence.
In the United States, a Patriot Act was rushed through Congress in the wake of 9/11. This enables the state, amongs other things, to acquire details of what books people have been borrowing from public libraries, as if some Al Quaeda man is going to walk into a library and ask the librarian to recommend a good book about how to make a bomb.
Chain stores and giant corporation, through the use of loyalty cards and bank-card receipts, compile a profile of what goods an individual purchases. This may have been designed to help their market research into what lines of product go down best in given areas, but it is sobering to think that our shopping habits are being monitored and could be integrated, by government request, into all the other details that are being held about us.
All of this is by way of prequel to the proposed introduction of ID cards for all. Mr Blair may not see ID cards brought into use in his time as prime minister, but he has laid the foundations very methodically. The Tories make the usual noises about freedoms and liberties but in office they would be every bit as draconian in these matters, if not worse.
People worry not only about being required to carry cards at all times but about what details will be carried on the little black strip that can be decoded with the requisite apparatus. These cards are capable of containing details about our credit-worthiness, our state of health, and whether or not we have a criminal record. These are matters which are our business, and our business only. It is ironic that governments who tighten the laws about the invasion of the privacy of "celebrities" should be so keen about trampling upon the privacy of the lives of the general population.
In Ireland, north and south, investigations into criminal assets can probe the taxes andf inancial standing of any citizen, with or without their consent. The basic intention may be sound, but the effects for the general population are retrogressive.
George Orwell wrote his prophetic novel 1984 in the year 1948. When the real 1984 came around, most commentators concluded that things had not turned out as bad as Orwell predicted. Today 22 years on, they would not be so sure.
In evidence, the court heard that a dispute had arisen between two parties of relatives about the authenticity of documentation appertaining to the estate of a local citizen who has died recently. One group of relatives claimed that they were the real and actual beneficiaries and that the claims of their rivals were not valid because of defaults and irregularities in the way that the paperwork had been drawn up, and witnessed. This interpretation was being challenged by another group who had been mentioned in what they maintained to be the genuine and legal last will and testament. Both parties were resolute in their demands. "What you might call," said the presiding judge, "a battle of wills."
Last Friday evening, everyone was wondering how security could be so lax that an intruder could gatecrash one of the most important of institutions, and how such a desperate individual could disrupt 'The Late, Late Show' on RTÉ.
A sausage factory in Wales has been reprimanded for marketing a brand of sausages called 'Welsh Dragons' in that the product contained no dragons.
Last week a study concluded that absent-minded people were more likely to suffer heart attacks. Perhaps they forget to take their pills regularly.
The Sunday Times reports: "Panto genie Alan Myatt has been forced to retire because he's too fat to burst onto the stage. Myatt, 49, can no longer force his 56-inch waist through the trap door of the Olympia Theatre in Gloucester, even though it was widened for him two years ago."
British Airways hs relented and is now to allow a check in operative to wear her half-inch cross. BA planes have the Union Jack emblazoned on their tail fins. If you took the crosses out of the Union Jack you would not have much left.
