Won't Someone Please Secure the Children?

Britain's place at the heart of the European Union seems more secure by the day, as the twenty-four lesser states turn increasingly towards the methods of freedomisation which have been developed here on the mainland. Without recourse to peoples or parliaments, and the tiresome complications they present, representatives of all member states have been drawing up laws which will require fingerprinting of children by June 2009. "The use of fingerprints and other biometric data," says the Observer, with its usual healthy scepticism towards the motives of the powerful, "is designed to prevent passport fraud and allow European member states to meet US entry visa requirements"; nevertheless, it appears that there are some for whom the privilege of travelling unhindered to the Land of the Free does not entirely outweigh the costs to individual privacy. Just because Britain has been collecting the fingerprints of "five-year-old asylum seekers" without "significant problems" for the past few months, that hardly seems an adequate excuse for the European Union to treat British children the way Britain treats refugees.