Typical summer photograph isn't it - one of my holiday snaps - we all have them. The UK government didn't know about this holiday of mine but they will know when I go abroad in future. They will even know my credit card details. By the end of this year they hope to have finished compiling 95% of the 250m annual passenger movements in and out of the UK every year the Sunday Times reports.
The Wythenshawe spy centre will house more than 300 police and immigration officials, plus technicians, who will be checking our details against M15, benefit agency and other watch lists.
'The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details for all 250m passenger movements in and out of the UK each year.'
'Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, defended the plans. “The UK has one of the toughest borders in the world and we are determined to ensure it stays that way. Our high-tech electronic borders system will allow us to count all passengers in and out and targets those who aren’t willing to play by our rules.”'
Are we going to accept this? Are we going to sit back and allow our elected representatives to ignore this? Phil Woolas says 'we have one of the toughest borders in the world.' Someone tell me he's joking - please. We're an island and any child could tell you it's easy to supervise the coastline of an island, if proper control is in place.
Back in the 70s the then UK government radically reduced the customs officers who policed the Scottish coastline and I understand their numbers have been gradually further diminished. Increasing them would protect Scotland much more and not only against terrorists but drug smugglers who know our coastline isn't well managed.
This whole operation, as you will read in the full article, has been kept secret. Why? Surely the public would have been pleased to know that the UK government is taking serious action to protect our borders from terrorists. Could it be that we may not be so happy to know that our every movement is now to be recorded and kept for 10 years?
This is little to do with protecting us from terrorists, it's far more to do with destroying our freedom.
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