Britain is rushing through emergency legislation to force internet and phone service providers to keep customers' data for a year to allow police and security services to check what criminals and terrorists are planning.
The Government and the opposition parties say we must do this because the European Court of Justice ruled on 8 April that Europe's 2004 Data Retention Directive on keeping such data was invalid and if we don't pass this new legislation, Google, O2 and the rest will stop keeping the data and terrorists will run riot.
Here, our media has debated this with those who say we will all be blown up if we don't grab this data on one side and those who say our data is not to be spied upon on the other. Our media has not asked what other European countries are doing.
Finland's Education Minister Krista Kiuru is all for the new Court of Justice ruling: 'Naturally, we must clean out the paragraphs enacted due to the Directive. We will gladly adhere to this decision. If we want Finland to be a model country when it comes to data protection, our legislation has be be in accordance with the fundamental citizen rights'.
Germany and the Czech Republic challenged the Directive when it was enacted and were threatened with fines if they did not comply with it. They will be delighted now that it has been ruled invalid. Sweden refused obey the Directive for many months and will also be delighted.
Why is our government frightening us with terror talk? Two possible reasons spring to mind:
1. Terrorists are more likely to attack the UK because of our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. The Americans have told us to bring in new UK laws to ensure that the CIA has this data to use.
Ever since the Data Retention Directive was passed in 2004, countries in mainland Europe have been trying to protect their citizens by getting it repealed.
In that time, Britain has gone further than the Directive in keeping data and says it is protecting its citizens in the 'war on terror'.
Who do you want to be protected by?
