The law has historically been imposed as a means to protect property and of course the more property you've got the more influence you have in shaping what becomes law.
No problem with that.
Now it seems that the intelligence services have made a grab for more law, not because they're interested in paedophiles, terrorists are drug smugglers, but because they're interested in grabbing intellectual property and more `jobs for the boys'.
Yeah, right, and the Jews were responsible for blowing up the twin towers. I'm very cynical about the authorities's motivations, but "grabbing intellectual property"? That's just tosh. I've heard so many daft conspiracy theories since 9/11 (as the Americans refer to it) that I'm thinking of writing a book. The slack security that led to the incident itself is support for the cock-up theory of disaster more than anything else. Subsequent proposals for new powers are just panicky efforts by incompetents at stable-door shutting. Here in the UK for example (see *The Observer*'s review of her autobiography) our very own Stella Rimington shut down the unit responsible for investigating al-Qaeda members in London years ago because she thought it was a waste of money. Sure, the security forces want more power and money, but most of them are inept plotters---unless it's some elaborate double-bluff, of course. The vast majority of such "security operatives" are bumbling bean-counters who just do what's required for a quiet life. They are civil servants---with all the images that creates; just like the half-wits who negotiate "bargain" deals with Microsoft.
Yay! The penguinistas should march on Menwith Hill, MI6 Vauxhall and parliament in no particular order and kick the lot out - our taxes would halve over night ;-)
Please, not the "small government" fetish---even as a joke. Most of the depressing aspects of life in Britain are nothing to do with high taxes and flabby administration; they're to do with people who have allowed themselves to be conned into believing they can have a proper health service (still considerably more efficient than most of the others in the World) without paying for it, or that they should be able to drive to work easily despite sitting one-to-a-jeep as they take their cars to school, to the newsagent and to the out-of-town shopping mall. We live in a democracy and the government pays most attention to the Daily Mail-reading voting bloc that is most likely to put a cross in the box. Increases in security powers are meant to please the "something-must-be-done" brigade and not the sorts of thoughtful iconoclasts who read this list ;-). They are very little to do with "intellectual property" or, indeed, "jobs for the boys"---about which most individual MI6 employees probably couldn't give a toss. (I told you I was cynical.) -- Damian COUNSELL http://www.counsell.com/