In the face
of potential local terrorism, UK political parties discuss the feasibility of
having additional emergency laws that would allow phone companies to store
information from subscribers from six months to two years. Many human rights
and privacy rights groups, including the Big Brother watch, warn that the UK
government must “think clearly” and not overreact to the situation.
The UK
government intends to use the indiscriminately collected data to find potential
returning terrorists and extremists who fought in the fronts of the Middle East
alongside known factions such as the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant
(ISIS) and rebels in Syria. Reports of British Muslims joining their ranks have
increased, with uploaded recruitment videos showing some of the extremists and
their lives in the UK.
Currently,
us, the public, is facing a collective paradox that only leaves us with a
single choice. Will we want to have the government peer into our daily lives
and privacies to help them find the potential terror threat in our own
neighbourhoods? Or will we have them enforce the security of our privacies as
we have the right to protect ourselves and our identities from the public?
Referring to
an internet joke, privacy laws are a “first world problem.” But privacy is an
essential human right. But then again, who has privacy when the Sharia-driven extremists
dominate the culture of the western world through force? Maybe we should think
of that. Maybe we are just prioritising our own selfishness, or maybe we are
paranoid that someone may try to manipulate our lives, namely the government.
Either way,
we may have to trade some of our privacy in the end.
