The private life in Britain...

OK, this piece by Clive James isn't explicitly about the erosion of our civil liberties, but in many ways it goes to the heart of what the current civil liberties debate is about: how valuable is privacy?

The answer, James says, is that it is as fundamental to civilisation as language:

"Private life is an institution, like the English language, which is collapsing too, and proving, even as it falls to bits, that it's a structure our lives depend on...Until recently, the concept of private life was basic to civilisation. Its value could be measured by the thoroughness with which totalitarian states and religions always did their best to stamp it out. But now we have to face the possibility that the latest stage of civilisation might also be trying to stamp it out."

Incidentally, if you scroll down you can see the first comment is from NO2ID's very own Guy Herbert.