RE: Government Noses

[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Watkin Simon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: 05 September 2003 18:02
> To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
> Subject: RE: Government Noses
> 
> 
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Sent: 04 September 2003 16:06
> > 
> > The trouble is Simon, that the recent Government advertising 
> > compaign aginst 
> > homelessness glorified in making the citizens - all of them - 
> > afraid of the 
> > power of government to see everything read everything hera 
> > everything and 
> > generally - nothing is left private anymore.
> 
> Did you mean homelessness or did you mean the "We're on to 
> you" campaign
> against benefit fraud?
>  
> > It is a disgraceful campaign,
> 
> Do you mean this?
> http://www.targetingbenefitfraud.gov.uk/on_to_you_adverts.html
> 
> > and it uses exactly the fear 
> > you ridicule as 
> > an implicit threat against anybody who might one day come up 
> > against the 
> > government. 
> 
> If you do mean the DWP campaign, where's the threat against 
> "anybody" as
> opposed to the threat against those cheating the benefit system?

Simon, you are missing a clear point here.

Those adverts make a big point about how much the authorities know about the
life of the fraudsters...

What you clearly miss is that since most people understand that government
cannot possibly know in advance who all the fraudsters are,  such wide
knowledge of the fraudsters can ONLY come from an equally large knowledge of
large sectors of the public in general.

Or perhaps you can explain how you manage to obtain such information without
prior surveillance of people who are only suspected of benefit fraud,  in
such a way that your success hit rate is very nearly 100%?

Because like it or not, otherwise, you are obtaining similar levels of
knowledge on the lives of many who are innocent.

And no matter how you seek not to acknowledge it,  that is a clear and
definite threat, albeit implied,  against anyone whose views differ from
those of government and officialdom.

And before you say "only if you are likely to commit a crime",  I'll remind
you of the disgraceful attempt to get political dirt on the Paddington
survivors' group.

Until government and officialdom can understand that adverts  glorying in
their implicit and explicit knowledge of the man in the street are a threat,
there seems little chance of them understanding more subtle and equally
important opinions on the subject.

Dave.