{"id":87,"date":"2013-06-11T14:04:04","date_gmt":"2013-06-11T13:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebirdblog.wordpress.com\/?p=87"},"modified":"2013-06-11T14:04:04","modified_gmt":"2013-06-11T13:04:04","slug":"hague-wants-everyone-watching-each-other-east-german-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/?p=87","title":{"rendered":"Hague wants everyone watching each other, East German-style"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>William Hague&#8217;s &#8220;If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear&#8221; is simplistic nonsense, as well he knows.<\/p>\n<p>To accept it as true, you need to believe the state:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>is incapable of error<\/li>\n<li>will never draw the wrong conclusion<\/li>\n<li>employs no-one with the wrong motives, and<\/li>\n<li>is and forever will be benign.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>You just cannot swallow all that! I am not talking fanciful stuff about despots in other countries:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Miscarriages of justice are not rare<\/li>\n<li>The Metropolitan Police branded protesters occupying parts of the City of Londong in 2011-12 as terrorists.<\/li>\n<li>This week the our Government apologised and paid compensation to people tortured in the Malayan Mau Mau uprising<\/li>\n<li>And remember how Thatcher criminalized whole communities during the mining industrial dispute.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hague is trying to engender an acceptance that everyone should be under suspicion at all times and an nil expectation of privacy &#8211; something taken to extremes in places like the former East Germany and Franco Spain, which is surely not how we want to live our lives in 21st Century Britain?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William Hague&#8217;s &#8220;If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear&#8221; is simplistic nonsense, as well he knows. To accept it as true, you need to believe the state: is incapable of error will never draw the wrong conclusion employs no-one with the wrong motives, and is and forever will be benign. You&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/?p=87\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Hague wants everyone watching each other, East German-style<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mikes-comments","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebird.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}