A Listening Government

Police espionage on mobile phone and internet use has risen by fifteen per cent in the past year, and local authorities have got in on the act "in order to identify fly tippers, counterfeit goods traders and those engaged in consumer rip-offs". The interception of communications commissioner attributed the increase to the Olympics, which have been responsible for so much that has gone wrong in the country recently, including of course the continuing and inexplicable public enthusiasm for the National Health Service. Since the commissioner is retiring, he also managed to warn that the snoopery has the potential to become highly intrusive; doubtless the employers of Serco and G4S, to say nothing of the minions of Murdoch, will take the warning jolly seriously. Almost a thousand errors were made, including five wrongful detentions of people falsely accused of crimes; and of course it is to avoid such little inconveniences that the Government is busy abolishing the distinction between innocent and guilty in favour of one between affordable and non-affordable.