It's a truly terrifying paradox. In the name of freedom, Britain is becoming a police state

TOM BOWER
UK Daily Mail
Tuesday February 5, 2008

Successfully bugging Islamic terrorists ranks among the key weapons to defeat those secretly campaigning to destroy Britain's liberal civilisation.

Ever since suicide bombers caused 52 deaths on the London Underground in 2005, we have reluctantly accepted further encroachments on our liberties as a necessary evil.

Last week's prosecutions in Birmingham against extremists plotting to behead a Muslim soldier, as part of a campaign to wreck Britain's racial harmony, were possible only because listening devices had been planted inside the terrorists' homes.

The intelligence officers who masterminded that delicate operation deserve high praise.

But accolades turn rapidly to admonition when the line between intrusion to defend our civilisation and intolerable denial of our liberties is crossed.

That is why the news that MI5, the domestic intelligence service, and Scotland Yard had apparently mounted an eavesdropping operation against Sadiq Khan, a Muslim MP and government whip, is so alarming.

In defending British society, our guardians' vigilance appears to threaten the destruction of the very values we seek to protect.

Regardless of the financial wrongdoing by a handful of greedy politicians, Britain's 646 MPs are the ultimate guardians of our liberties.

Within the House of Commons, MPs are empowered to fearlessly expose corruption and oppression. Only their elected authority, threatening to shame ministers and public servants, protects Britain from dictatorship.

Rightly, our MPs jealously guard the rights and privileges afforded to their electorate since the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215.

Hence, the suggestion that the State's police and intelligence services secretly investigated Sadiq Khan arouses justifiable fears that our increasingly authoritarian Government is adopting powers familiar to the Nazi and Stalinist tyrannies.

Yes, it is possible that Khan's visit to a suspected terrorist awaiting extradition to the U.S. might have provided pertinent information for the intelligence services.

Full article here.