Try watching the movie Zeitgeist (www.zeitgeistmovie.com). Banks collapsing, Government takeovers - it really is coming true.

RW, Madrid, Spain

Agreed, this is an excellent piece. It is frightening what the "intellectualists" at the top will come up with when they start applying the neurolinguistic programming of Sudoku and Crosswords over society!

Worrying. You are not a person. You are owned...

S, ox, UK

Don't be fooled, Tom Paine. Although the French don't have as many CCTV cameras and their surveillance is quieter, they have other faults just as noxious such as corruption at the highest level, government and business run by the old school network and a crippling reliance on image.

Jenny, London, England

Your reference to George Orwell gave me the willies. 1984 is being realised. Big Brother. On the underground do not make eye contact. I have been made to feel paranoid about smiling at a child in the UK so sad. With all our problems back home in SA we still smile at people.

Gary Margot, Durban, South Africa

Nick from Bristol, are you refering to Tony Blair or Eric Arthur Blair?

Gary Margot, Durban, South Africa

So now you've pointed out the problem, what should we do? Go march outside parliament? Cant do that, it's against the law. Write to our MP, no point, they write back telling you where to stick your vote. What can we do?

Arthur, Newcastle,

You would never believe it!!!!!
Whilst reading post very interesting article I received an email at work from head office. Titled "NEW WHISTLE BLOWING POLICY" To cut the story short it encourages staff to grass up fellow colleagues. This plague is spreading a lot faster than you realise. AARGH!!!

Si, Surrey, uk

We know all this. What we want to know is - how to oppose it and make them stop. Voting does not seem to work. The databases/snitches are there so they can stop you before you can do anything they have to take notice of. I think I`ve just heard a knock at the door!!!!!

Jim, Herts,

This article is too late! We have already passed several scary laws.

We seem, as a nation, to be mildly concerned about ID cards for instance but I bet we'll blithely elect the party that introduces them and charges us for the invasion of our own privacy.

Violet, Gloucester,

I agree with most others that the state is becoming ever more intrusive and authoritarian, but how do we fight it? Where is the organised oppostion? If they start singling out groups or individuals for special treatment (as per Nazism), will we raise a murmur?

Ged , Paris,

An excellent piece. Having already introduced "Double Speak" and "Double Think", this is the final step to New Labour's 1984. The enquiries and "lessons learned" when a child "falls through the net" continue unabated. What happened to Blair's talk of "masters and servants" when they were elected?

Nick, Bristol, UK

Definitely the real danger of our times - and one that is not being addressed - at all.

Michael, Ankara, Turkey

When the winds howl, rains pour and the environmental chickens come home to roost with their economic sisters, the Island of Britain will be as a life raft to many nations across the channel. Mass surveillance will be a damned but necessary evil. Perhaps that's how paranoid we should be.

Rowg, London, UK

Having left the UK 3 years ago I look back with increasing horror at what is happening. The nanny state and the "war on terror" are joining forces to destroy one thousand years of history. Great article.

Terry Nolan, Auckland, New Zealand

The most dangerous issue of our time (alongside wars, terrorism and financial woes), yet I'll bet it won't figure at next election time as it lies, by definition, below the radar. What is more, the Tories probably espouse it (as does Europe) and won't do much to change it even if made to promise to

Nick, Athens,

One simple lesson from history is that things change when enough people take a stand. Labour couldn't get elected in the '80s so they infiltrated non-elected organisations. When they finally fooled enough people to get elected, they had us in a vice.

MarkChina, Beijing,

I think the phrase 'You're not paranoid if they really are watching you' ironically describes the governments behaviour.

Phil, Surrey, UK

such a true article. that old word from school "snitching " crops to mind so many times recently. if a country has a psychology then ours is currently paranoid with touches of OCD. in its pursuit of safety its making people obsess over things they would never think about and making everyone victims

James, London, UK

It is as though the government is introducing the instruments of totalitarianism via the back door. We are an ever-shorter step away from becoming a dictatorship, and the political apathy and social fragmentation of society is allowing this to happen, or am I too paranoid?

Ben Garside, Loughborough, UK

I recently watched a DVD film titled "Other Peoples lives" it's about the Stasi in East Germany,if you want to know where all of this surveilance is heading I suggest you watch it.Several Labour ministers had communist sympathies in their past life this film shows where it is coming from.

R.Rowan, Sandown, England

I think it can be summed up in a few words: Welcome to Napoleonic Law, guilty until proven innocent.

Thomas, Alicante, Spain

its the nu labour and the health stasi that is paranoid thinking that us once freemen of england are conspiring against them so have to be kept under the watchful eye of the nanny state its not terroists they should be worried about but the voters who have had enough and will VOTE EM OUT in 2010

brian rice, halifax, england

in our part of the world, which has seen most deadly encounters with terror, warnings that you are being watched, appeared on every road. The Orwellian dictum of Big Brother is watching you, seems to be said for our age, how true was he!

Manzoor, Peshawar, Pakistan

Of all the alarm bells to ring, the government's own chief prosecutor has turned into the champion of human rights. As for the LCC case, a database of suspicion and innuendo is the basis of all the secret policing in history.
You're right. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you!

KR, Stockport,

It's funny how we constantly hear about the breakdown of society.

Benefit fraud hotline, people being paid to snitch on your expired tax disc, accountants to report suspicious activities of clients, a childrens database. SNITCH.

No wonder society is broken. People cant trust eachother anymore

Christophe Sir, london, UK

"The Government is building a Children's Database that will contain the personal details of every child"

Children become adults and after a few generations we are all controlled from cradle to grave.

Andrew, Cape Town,

One of the corrollories of this increasing information gathering is including public servants in the process, and those public servants are increasingly officious, stonewalling any reasonable discourse with the public that pays their wages; all on the basis that they have a "duty to act".

Franco, Blackburn,

Tom,

You very nearly got it right, We British are rapidly becoming suspects of the Crown.

Nigel Stanworth, Bingley, UK

We need to get together and show the clowns (government, "intelligence services"-an oxymoron if ever there was one) who delude themselves that they can do what they like that we can(drum roll) waste their time-a campaign of pointless phone calls and reporting ourselves. Watch the database collapse.

pete, wolverhampton, UK

The mathematicians will tell you that large databases inevitably contain many errors and that, the longer a database is maintained, the more corrupt it becomes. In the case of child abuse, most of the 'information' is unverifiable opinion and supposition, making things much worse.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

In the early days of the Nazi administration in Germany, the state gave to the police powers to enter and search any private premises or homes without a legal warrant. Its response to criticism was: 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear'. Now, we hear the same from ministers here.

Bruce, Apt, France

Has anyone seen the "we are watching you" posters that are now on bus stops aimed at benefit fraudsters? They look alot like something out of 1984.

Ben Bower, Doncaster, UK

The End of Democracy. Only this time it's not an exaggeration. Western Europe and North America are in decline. Are we witnessing (in more ways than one) the ascent of Eastern and Southern Europe, China, South America, India. Perhaps demoracy and free speech will survive in these countries?

Roger Bingham, Bergen , Norway

If they really can afford to embark on such a wasteful project (this is government IT, remember), then the Treasury can afford to send in the dogs and relieve the department of a swollen purse.

Ought to help pay for the odd bank or two.

D Murphy, Skipton,

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Oh yeah, you have even more to fear than most. Databases contain at least 10% inaccuracies, you are on 10 or more databases. There is no mechanism to check and definitely no mechanism to correct inaccuracies.

Mike Sedgwick, Eastleigh, UK

I America we have Democrats speaking out against the phone companies "sharing" imformation with the government. Yet they vote in favor of it. Governments are acting to protect themselves from the people they are supposed to be representing.

Something is afoot in the World!

michael horning, sant fe, USA

just remember east germany. they had an organisation called the STASI. it collected info on everything and everybody was an informer. it bankrupted the state and destroyed trust and privacy. why can't we learn from history?

Ian, Brisbane,

Are these powers that government and government agencies have taken upon themselves to enforce resulting in the breaching of privacy laws.

If they are not , are the existing privacy laws adequate?

Tony Atkins, Cairns, Australia

Excellent article, no adult can be trusted should = no man can be trusted. Demonisation of men = minimal man boy relationships = more teacher assaults, police in schools, young people stabbed on a regular basis, unhappiest kids in Europe. More articles needed to break this a dangerous mindset.

Brian Hill, Edinburgh,

Relationships between parents and school / health professionals only work when the information shared isn't stored on an insecure database and shared with 330,000 civil servants and child protection professionals. You think I'm going to take a kid who's just fallen downstairs to casualty? No way!

Michael, Liverpool,

Camilla, you are one of the sanest people on the planet and wide awake too.

It is the poor sheep, who need to wake up to reality.

Lilith Barrett, London, UK

The French are citizens. We British are subjects of the Crown.

Vive la Republique!

Tom Paine, Huddersfield, UK