Living in a police state

I'm often reminded by an old friend that back in 1995 I responded to a grievance he had by saying, "That's because we live in a police state."

He says I was being prescient, I say I was talking a load of old codswallop, particularly when you compare what freedoms we had in 1995 compared to the freedoms we "enjoy" today. Another one's on the way out too: now this government is planning to give police the power to hack into our personal computers without a court order. What's more, they'll be able to do it without informing us by effectively infecting our PCs with keyloggers and other spyware.

I will give myself some credit: I've been ranting about sleepwalking into a surveillance society for years, and now it's sadly obvious that we've done just that. A big thumbs up to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for equipping some future government with the tools in which to take it to its logical conclusion: a one-party state where democracy is a dirty word consigned to the dustbin of history.