Interesting article in The Guardian yesterday about the police units used to conduct surveillance on 'domestic extremists' who, in most cases, have done nothing more than attend a protest or a community meeting. The police defend it by saying anyone on a database has the 'potential' to commit crimes. Based on that logic anyone who walks into a pub could be a potential drink driver; anyone who gets into financial difficulty is a potential burglar; anyone who regularly travels overseas is a potential drug mule; anyone can be a potential anything.

One sign of a totalitarian society is the paranoid fear of internal threats. MI5 even kept a file on the Sex Pistols for god's sake. Are we starting to see a sign of this in our modern 'democratic' society in the UK?