Reminds me of the film Children of Men

The blithe trust in the benign power of the state is astonishing - and in Fortress Britain, it is plainly undeserved

Jenni Russell
Wednesday November 21, 2007
The Guardian

It is the cheerful acquiescence of the vast majority that shocks me. A government that so admires liberty now proposes to restrict it still further. In future, we won't be able to leave the country without answering 53 questions on everything from our travel plans and companions' itineraries to our frequent-flyer information and history of no-shows. One item on the government's list is headed: "Anything else the travel agent finds of interest". Another has the catch-all category: "Any other biographical information". Anyone seen as potentially suspicious could be refused permission to board trains or planes, without right of appeal.

This is only one element of the plans that have been dubbed "Fortress Britain": 250 principal railway stations are to introduce airline-style security; cinemas, shopping centres and other public places are to be protected by concrete bollards and fortified barriers; no new underground car parks are to be built; and dropping passengers off outside shopping centres is to be banned. Meanwhile the government is attempting to double the maximum period of detention without charge to 56 days.

Whether this prospect fills you with quiet relief or utter horror is a reflection of your deepest assumptions about the trustworthiness of the state and its agents, your faith in the smooth workings of systems, and your level of anxiety about terrorist attacks. Ultimately it is about what you fear most - the random destructiveness of terrorism, or the accumulation of unprecedented power and information in the hands of an increasingly controlling state.

In the country at large, the response to these questions does not divide along party lines. In conversations over the last few days, velvet-jacketed Conservatives, radical retired teachers and sleek-suited New Labour bosses have all been indifferent to the possible pitfalls. They all, independently, voiced the new mantra: "I've got nothing to hide, so I've nothing to fear." This is so far from my own instinctive repulsion that it has made me think about what might possibly change their minds.

The people who support these changes are on the whole indifferent to the argument that these plans are an insane overreaction, a waste of public money, and the equivalent of building a dam with porous bricks. It is in vain to point out that you can scan passengers at King's Cross all you like, but that a bomber will still be free to blow himself up in a Cambridge market, on a Highlands bus, or at Fortnum's while having tea. These people are not susceptible to the argument that, with a million possible targets in Britain, the ostentatious protection of a few does nothing to make us generally safer. Nor do they mind that the immediate consequence of travel questionnaires is likely to be the disruption of thousands of innocent plans, caught out by human or systemic error, while terrorists have the foresight to plan around them.

What unites this group is a real faith in the power of the state to protect them from evil. They do not mind handing over power and information in return for greater safety. They believe strongly that the state will always deal fairly with them, that they themselves will not be objects of suspicion, and that official errors will be speedily addressed. It is this blithe trust in the state's judgments that worries me most. Three recent events have been small pointers of just how the state can behave when it finds individuals a threat.

Last week it emerged that, days before the De Menezes shooting in 2005, a diabetic man who had gone into a coma on a bus in Leeds was Tasered by armed police, as a suspected terrorist, when he didn't respond to their challenges. He woke to find himself manacled in a police van. Yet Tasers were intended to subdue violent offenders, not stun sick men. In our new state of terror, the rules are apparently changing.

Last April, six peaceful protesters (including a GP) against the widening of the M1 were arrested before they arrived at the motorway. They had never done anything more remarkable than hang banners from motorway bridges. They were held for 14 hours; their houses were broken into although the police had their keys; and they had computers, diaries, bicycles and notebooks seized. They were bailed on condition they had no contact with one another, although two are partners, and two share a house. Seven months on they have neither been charged nor had their possessions returned. Yet peaceful civil protest is supposed to be permissible in Britain.

Perhaps most alarming is the evidence of the Independent Police Complaints Commission into the De Menezes shooting. Leave aside the fact that an innocent man was shot. Look at what the eight police officers did when they realised a mistake had been made. After advice from lawyers, the eight composed their statements together. All eight claimed that before shooting, there had been several warning shouts of "Armed police". Remarkably, not one of the 17 witnesses in the tube carriage heard any such thing. Does this fact give you confidence in the veracity of the police, or other agents of the state, should your evidence ever be in conflict with theirs?

It is incidents like these that should make us worry about the complacent transfer of greater power to state authority. If the British state seems benign to most of us, this is because it has been surrounded by legal and cultural constraints. What is changing now is the legitimisation of suspicion as the basis for official action against us. It will increasingly be seen as our responsibility not to arouse the state's suspicions, rather than its business to prove our guilt. Do we really want to live our lives this way?