Je suis Charlie and the threat to free speech

Now that some of the furore surrounding the appalling events in Paris has died down, I've become concerned that Free Speech is not under threat from just those purporting to represent the Islamic Religion. Perhaps the biggest threat is the potential increase in power being recommended by sections of our elected representatives.

It seems that the Conservative Party are becoming more and more the party of the knee jerk reaction desperate by any means to garner votes without considering some of the implications of their latest policy shift.

Almost inevitably, Cameron and co are calling for increased surveillance of our actions online and allegedly wish to mandate that encryption on communication be banned. The tired old mantra of if you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear is trotted out once again as some kind of justification for this violation of privacy.

To some no doubt the call rings true but if you think about the latter new policy on encryption it reminds me of King Canute. You can't uninvent encryption. You probably use it every day in your online dealings with your bank or doing your shopping. Attempting to ban it would have almost zero effect other than to allow snooping on people who should never be targets for it. The bad guys would continue to use it, GCHQ, MI5 and any other security service you care to mention would still struggle to break it and as such we would be no further forward with pre empting the disgusting actions of the few looking to destabilise the world for their own ends.

Cameron's assertion that we have the best record in the world on safe guarding privacy is laughable. It's obvious from the sheer volume of RIPA requests processed by some of the 'delegated authorities' that the original purpose of RIPA has been extended to include snooping on householders for dustbin transgressions and car parking issues. You can bet that once they start collecting more data, the sheer volume held would be too tempting for them to not use it.

Now I'm not suggesting that the problems faced by our security services aren't huge when they are dealing with terror threats and the evolving nature of these. There's no denying that they face an impossible task. Nor am I able to provide a solution. I merely think that policy makers are not concerned with the facts of the matter, all they're interested in is the votes and that's dangerous.