(6 March 2013, 19:08)cryingfreeman Wrote: If a major war is imminent (that is, by UK government definition of the term, i.e., weeks away and likely to entail the UK being struck), one of the things to expect if the old declassified governmental War Book is anything to go by is the rounding up of anyone deemed a potential threat to the state. During the Cold War, that meant hardcore communists but today it might mean anyone with a Russian wife (along with said wife herself plus any kids), as the "secret state" morphs into the "take no chances state". The Cold War destination was to be hastily improvised prison (that is, "concentration") camps on the Isle of Man.

@ Geordie Rob & MaryN: You say if you have nothing to hide then why fear? The answer to that is that our western governments have been on a two track path of increasing surveillance of their citizens on the one hand and continually redefining the term "terrorist" / "enemy combatant" on the other, legislating to deal with those thus designated with increasingly Kafka-esque rigour (indefinite detention, trail without charge, without recourse to legal aid, stripping of citizenship, etc). So, while today you may not fall afoul of the bogeyman definition du jour, tomorrow you could find yourself under scrutiny thanks to some new definition added to the statute book. By being a prepper and, even more so, by openly identifying yourself as such online, you are already a non-conformist under existing mantra and therefore of interest - to some degree or other - to the secret state whose officers - let's not be naive about this - monitors sites like this routinely. If they did not do so, they would not being doing their job.

So, the point I am making is that everyone is now regarded as a potential threat to the state, hence everyone has their data collated, rated and referenced, almost certainly with point-and-click functionality. If you see what detailed information a small, modestly funded government agency such as Social Services has on file about parents, just try to imagine what the massively funded secret bodies have. Now, with that in mind, are you sure you have "nothing to hide"? Are you sure that one, two, five years from now, you will have "nothing to hide"?