Security Basic Rights and Porn
March 30, 2009 by Ken
Filed under Some Basic Rights, Westminster
The fluff of parliamentary reporting, are we really interested in the fact that the Home Sectaries husband watched two porn films last April and is it really that important within the context of the amount these politicians are costing us as part of a failing institution, that they then claimed the ten pounds cost of the films from the taxpayer?
In one way yes it is an important issue because it signals the general divide between them and us shows that these people have no respect for the general population their high positions or the trust they hold and they lack any perspective of moral values.
From their reasonably comfortable positions in terms of their own safety when they are probably not that clear about the financial threats facing the rest of us they take an approach to privacy which puts the right of safety above a pretty fundamental right for us to be safe from government interference.
I think people’s fundamental civil liberty is that we are kept safe from the power of the state to arbitrarily impose its laws and its theoretical morality on the people.
The first freedom we have is the right to life and then the right to sustain and protect that life, like Tony Blair before her the home sectary Jacqui Smith seems to believe that a basic right of peoples protection from state power can be eroded under the pretext of ensuring the state has the power to “protect us” from ourselves.
These politicians are taking away people’s rights and privacy when it comes to basic protections against the state, in order to undermine our democracy and values that we hold dear in this country
Thus whilst the media are up in arms about ten quid spent on porn films yesterday The Telegraph reports that Jacqui Smith, has launched an angry tirade against “comfortable” civil liberties campaigners who fail to appreciate the extent of the security risk.
Asked for her view of civil liberties campaigners, she said:
“I get exasperated about people who are in reasonably comfortable positions in terms of their personal safety, who probably aren’t completely clear about the threats, and who take an approach to rights which puts the right of privacy above a pretty fundamental right for us to be safe.
“And they do that from a comfortable position where they’re not actually responsible for bringing down crime and tackling terrorism.”
“I think people’s fundamental civil liberty is that they are kept safe from terrorism and serious crime.
“I said the first day I arrived in this job that my responsibility was to protect this country, its borders, its communities, precisely so that people could be free to live their lives as effectively as possible. That is the first freedom that I want people to have – the freedom that comes from security.
“People are trying to take away people’s lives and when it comes to terrorism, to undermine our democracy and values that we hold dear in this country.
Jacqui Smith is right people could be free to live their lives as “effectively” as possible without having to worry about the introduction of a police state by the very people we elect to protect our rights and freedoms.
