The phrase "Big Brother" has been hijacked as a title for an increasingly tacky piece of exploitation TV but the original meaning of the term is still alive. The music corporations are boasting about finding a teenage girl who has been downloading music so that the corporations can now prosecute her mother. The media report with a straight face the idea that downloading will ruin the business. (Just as video recorders ruined the business or taping music off the wireless ruined the business presumably.) There has not been a peep of protest about the invasion of the teenager's privacy by the corporations. It is OK for the corporations to know the contents of everyone's computer "for their own good" so to speak. At least they have dropped the laughable - "if you download a tune you are funding terrorism" line which was greeted with sceptical derision whenever they broadcast it. On the TV there are a series of public service adverts threatening people without licences for watching TV and threatening people who work while signing for benefit. In both the message is the same "we know all about you, we are coming to get you." This is New Labour's image of a caring society. The BBC dismisses anyone who opposes these measures as "civil libertarians" to create the impression that ordinary people are uninterested in liberty or privacy and such interests are just the province of some special interest group of "civil libertarians". The corporations openly boast about their infringements of our liberty and the government joins in the chorus. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.7.10/25 - Release Date: 21/06/2005 ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com