[Infowarrior] - Revenge on the UK's arch-snooper

[Richard Forno]

What a perfect revenge on the arch snooper

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/22/jacqui-smith-expenses-inquiry

           o Carole Cadwalladr
           o The Observer, Sunday 22 February 2009

Hardly anyone actually shoots themselves in the foot or literally gets  
egg on their face, so it was a real pleasure last week, in so many  
ways, to witness Jacqui Smith being hoist with her own petard.

A petard was, in the original French, an explosion of intestinal gas  
which, in turn, gave its name to a small bomb, such as the one that  
erupted across the papers last week, when the neighbours of her  
sister's house in Peckham, south London, came forward and told the  
press that she was only there a couple of days a week.

Because, in the small matter of whether she was right to pocket  
£116,000 of additional expenses by claiming that the back bedroom she  
rents off sister is her "main home", as opposed to the house she owns  
in her constituency in Redditch where her husband and children happen  
to live, this turns out to be critical testimony.

Standards Commissioner John Lyon twice turned down requests to  
investigate the matter. It was only when some neighbours, Dominic and  
Jessica Taplin, wrote to him and repeated the claims they made to a  
newspaper, that she is there rather less than the four nights a week  
that she claims, that he agreed to open an inquiry.

It's this that's the real beauty of the story. Residents on the online  
East Dulwich forum (East Dulwich being what you call Peckham if you  
happen to live there) declared themselves outraged at the behaviour of  
the neighbours, with words like "snitch", "curtain-twitchers",  
"grassers" and "narks" being bandied about (apparently "Dominic and  
Jessica Taplin represent all that's worst about the new smug arriviste  
elements of East Dulwich"). This is the world that Jacqui Smith has  
created. The only shame is that they didn't capture her on CCTV.

If you want to rat out your neighbours, allow the home secretary to  
enumerate the ways. Do you know someone who claims more from the state  
than they're entitled to? Who is "picking the pockets of law-abiding  
taxpayers"? Not politicians over-egging their allowances, obviously,  
but "benefit thieves". If so, call 0800 854 440 now. "We're closing in  
with hidden cameras. We're closing in with every means at our disposal."

Do they own more than one mobile phone? Then call 0800 789 321.  
"Terrorists need communication. They often collect and use many pay-as- 
you-go mobile phones, as well as swapping Sim cards and handsets."

No mobile phones? What about if they're "hanging around"? Or, as the  
Home Office-funded radio advertisement puts it: "How can you tell if  
they're a normal everyday person or a terrorist? The answer is that  
you don't have to. If you call the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline  
on 0800 789 321, the specialist officers you speak to will analyse the  
information. They'll decide if and how to follow it up. You don't have  
to be sure. If you suspect it, report it."

It's such a lovely turn of phrase, that. If you suspect it, report it.  
Don't wait for evidence. Or question your own prejudices. If someone's  
not a "normal everyday person" exactly like you, then they could well  
be a member of al-Qaida. What flawless logic that is. We're already  
described as "a surveillance state" by Privacy International, one in  
five of all CCTV cameras ever made are currently in Britain, and Smith  
is drawing up plans to intercept every phone call we make and every  
email we send. The Taplins weren't snitches - they were perfect  
citizens in her New Model Army. And while her critics invoke the  
analogy of the Stasi, a more accurate comparison would be with a  
suburb in Connecticut, circa 1961.

Because for all its period atmosphere with Kate Winslet in a little  
pill-box hat, Revolutionary Road, the film for which she may or may  
not win an Oscar tonight, feels a curiously contemporary affair. Not  
just for its critique of capitalism, the profound sense of emptiness  
that afflicts the characters despite, or maybe because of, their  
material comforts, but because of the hermetic vision of suburbia it  
offers: a conformity of living, of beliefs, aspirations and behaviour  
that is rigorously policed by family, friends and neighbours. If you  
suspect it, report it. And if you live by the sword, Jacqui, you must  
be prepared to die by it too.