I Predict Disquiet

I heard on the news this morning that the Government wants to snoop on more areas of our private lives.

In addition to wanting access to our emails and records of our phone calls and internet use, the Government now wants to know who are friends are on social networking sites like Bebo, Facebook and MySpace.

I don’t know about you, but despite the claims that our data will be safe and we have nothing to fear, I simply do not trust governments with all of this personal information.

Tom Brake MP, one of my Lib Dem colleagues has called it a snooper’s charter, while another, Steve Webb MP, argues tongue in cheek that ‘Some people would say "if you've nothing to hide, then why not?". But on that basis, let's have a little camera in the corner of every room in our homes, just in case any illegal activity takes place. After all, if you've nothing to hide....

Opposition to the idea is unsurprisingly being led by my party. Instinctively Liberal Democrats oppose intrusions into our private lives and this is just one more example of an ever more authoritarian Government in the UK whose time in office is running out.