The Totalitarianizing of Britain: War comes home to Britain

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the basic freedoms being lost in Britain as the "national security state", imported from the United States by New Labour, takes effect.

Freedom is being lost in Britain. The land of Magna Carta is now the land of secret gagging orders, secret trials and imprisonment. The government will soon know about every phone call, every email, every text message. Police can wilfully shoot to death an innocent man, lie and expect to get away with it. Whole communities now fear the state. The foreign secretary routinely covers up allegations of torture; the justice secretary routinely prevents the release of critical cabinet minutes taken when Iraq was illegally invaded. The litany is cursory; there is much more.

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