Innocent Until Snooped On

We have nothing to fear from our own intelligence services snooping on us - unless we've got something to hide.  So says our illustrious Foreign Secretary, (and failed Tory Party leader who was so crap he couldn't win an election, yet still holds high office), William Hague.  Yes folks, we're back to that age old piece of idiocy - If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear from surveillance.  In which case, can we expect Mr Hague to allow us to view a live video feed from his bedroom?  After all, if he has nothing to hide, he has no reason to hide what he gets up to in bed with his wife.  Unless, of course, there's some secret there - maybe they don't share a bed, perhaps they have separate beds like Fred and Wilma in The Flintstones?  Could that be what Hague's defence of GCHQ for allegedly circumventing the UK's legal restrictions on snooping on the electronic communications of UK citizens by simply using intelligence gathered by its US counterpart the NSA is really about - he wants to know who is speculating about his sexual orientation in e-mails, texts and phone calls?  Is he really that fearful that somewhere on Facebook there's a 'Is William Hague a Bender?' group that he finds it necessary to launch mass electronic surveillance of the UK's population?

Obviously, William Hague isn't gay, (he and his supporters have told us that enough times), but if he was gay, isn't about time he embraced his true sexuality and accepted that it is perfectly natural?  I mean, there's no stigma attached to it these days.  These really are extraordinary lengths to go to in order to keep such a thing covered up.  (Which obviously he isn't doing as he isn't gay).  But to get back to the original point, such as it was, I thought that both here and in the US there was a presumption of innocence?  Surely it is fundamental principal of our justice systems that the authorities don't start rummaging through my life unless there is some evidence I might be implicated in criminal activity?  Indeed, Hague seems to be saying this still is the case as only the 'guilty' are targeted by secret surveillance.  Except that they can't be 'guilty'.   Only a court of law can determine 'guilt' or innocence after hearing all the relevant evidence in a legal trial.  In which case there'd be no point in watching them, as they would already have been tried and sentenced.  The problem, of course, is that in reality the intelligence and security services, whether here or in the US, have little idea of who they should suspect.  So, instead they just monitor everyone, indiscriminately, just in case any of us commit a crime.  In which case, conveniently, they'll already have all the information they need.  The next logical step, I suppose, would be a lurch into Minority Report territory, where they use the information they glean from your communications to predict whether you are even thinking about committing a crime or doing something anti-social, and intervene to prevent you from doing it.

The bottom line here is that we seem to be slipping back into medieval notions of justice. You know, ducking suspected witches, then declaring that if they survive it is the work of the Devil and they are therefore guilty, but if they drown they're innocent.  Except nowadays it isn't witchcraft it is 'terrorism' and the argument is that if you aren't a terrorist you have to give up all your civil liberties in order that the state can prove you aren't by snooping on you, but if you protest and invoke the very civil liberties the state is professing to protect, you must be guilty.  Welcome to the 'free' world!