A war on terror? You betcha.
The Government is planning action to stop local councils using surveillance powers designed for terrorism and serious crime to deal with trivial offences like dog-fouling, a Home Office minister said today.
Vernon Coaker admitted that council snooping on people who overfill bins or drop litter was undermining public support for the anti-terror law, and promised action ‘in the near future’.
Mr Coaker also defended the scale of the national DNA database, which contains samples from 7.39 per cent of the UK population – more than in any other country in the world – and includes those detained by police but released without charge.</em>
Boy, we’d be in a sorry state if there were actually bad people out there intent on killing us all, wouldn’t we?