LETTER

Reply to editorial, “What privacy?”

 

Damn you, Mr Ryan, I walk the walk!

I have no mobile telephone . . .  I have no credit cards . . . I have no points cards . . . I have no debit cards . . .  I have no Facebook page . . .  I have no passport . . . In short, I am utterly chip-free and pay in hard cash.

As a result . . .  I can no longer travel abroad . . . I can no longer use the library or pretty much any municipal services . . . I can no longer buy online . . . I can no longer have a Yahoo or Google account . . . I cannot compete in a whole slew of product contests like "Do Us A Flavour".

And dealing with the state and the police is a daily uphill struggle with rapidly dwindling ID, whilst collecting mail from the post office is near impossible.

And yes, I do bitterly resent the intrusion of Police cameras, a primary reason why I left England in the first place. Cameras are not preventing crime but causing it.  In nature, a predator first surveys possible prey, then pursues and eats it. As a result, we are naturally geared to recognise instinctively being surveyed as a prelude to being killed and eaten by a predator. Do this persistently on a huge scale and people begin to crack up and go postal. Indeed, there is rather more truth to the film "Kingsman" than would at first appear as it is, in a sense, almost prophetic.  It seems to me more than just a coincidence that the city of Nice had more cameras per foot on its streets than any other in France.

This crazy intrusion of our lives and the sidelining and destruction of the rights of those few of us who stand up to the grasping hands of state's bullyboys has to stop.  Unless this occurs, we face an ever increasing tide of people cracking up and going postal with truly tragic consequences.

Robert L Thompsett
Aylmer