Something tells me that HMG does not expect their proposed fox-hunting ban to be awfully popular with the country folk:

Police are planning to use spy cameras in the countryside to enforce a ban on fox hunting.

Chief constables intend to site CCTV cameras on hedgerows, fences and trees along known hunting routes to enable them to photograph hunt members who break the law after hunting with hounds is outlawed.

They used to warn that 'walls have ears'. Now walls will have eyes as well. I suppose the panopticon countryside is nothing more than a logical extension of our panoptican cities. It is merely a matter of time before every workplace and every home is wired up to the Big Eye of Big Brother. Then the nightmare really begins.

There exist all manner of varying justifications for this surveillance-fever but there is only one reason that our political masters are deploying it with such alacrity: because they can.

The same technology that enables us to chatter with each other across national boundaries is being used to create a tightly-wrapped police state.

What a very, very grim future we face.

Cross-posted from Samizdata.net