WITH the government hell bent on increasing the scope of anti-terrorism laws, while reassuring us that they will only be used when there is 'a good reason to believe that there is genuinely a terrorist threat' the only argument we hear as to why we should give up our freedoms and liberties is that 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.'

In recent weeks we have seen an 82-year-old OAP ejected from the Labour conference and then prevented from re-entering - one of 600 people stopped under anti-terror laws during the conference; a Guardian journalist stopped, detained, his DNA taken and now stored indefinitely on police files, and then released while on the Underground for the suspicious activity of 'playing with his phone and then taking a paper from his inside jacket'; and the Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police admitting that he deliberately broke the law and delayed the start of the shooting enquiry as he personally felt the law was inappropriate to the circumstances.

Why do people feel that 'having nothing to hide' provides them a magical shield from the oppression of the totalitarian state that Tony Blair wishes to leave as his legacy as Prime Minster?

Cherish your freedoms, say 'No' to anti-terror laws and say 'No' to ID cards.

Martin Evans

Bromsgrove