With the financial crisis grabbing most of the headlines these days it seems that the so-called war on terror has taken a back seat. However, looking at some of the legislative proposals being trotted out at the moment you would be forgiven for thinking that there is more than a hint of cold war paranoia in the air.

Amid the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s plans for a new £12bn “super database” that will allow Government officials to monitor people’s every online move, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, has given a warning of the dangers of such a massive expansion of “Big Brother” state surveillance and of the growth of a “security state”.

The Government is currently examining ways to collect and store records of phone calls, e-mails and internet traffic. Jacqui Smith has stated that without the right to monitor the flow of internet messaging, the police and security services would have to consider a “massive expansion of surveillance”.

As a backdrop, it is interesting to note that Britain came bottom of the European league for surveillance and civil intrusion in this year’s Privacy International Survey. George Orwell would be rolling in his grave but is it the case that "the innocent have nothing to fear"???

Sir Ken Macdonald, who heads the Crown Prosecution Service, said that the “enormous powers of access to information” that technology had given the state should be used with great care. According to The Times he told an audience at the inaugural Crown Prosecution Service lecture in London last night: “We need to take very great care not to fall into a way of life in which freedom’s back is broken by the relentless pressure of a security state.”

Technology, he added, was of critical importance to the struggle against serious crime and used wisely, could protect society. It gave “the state enormous powers to access to knowledge and information about each one of us. And the ability to collect and store it at will; every second of every day, in everything we do.” But he also called for “level-headedness and legislative restraint”.

Wondering where are we headed ?

Got a story? Contact team solicitr