UK's `surveillance society' costing taxpayers 20 billion pounds: Report
7 Jul 2008, 1324 Hrs

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London, July 7 (ANI): A TaxPayers' Alliance report has claimed that Britain's "surveillance society" is costing the national exchequer 20 billion pounds, or 800 pounds per household.

The amount includes 19 billion pounds for the planned ID card system and 500 million pounds for CCTV cameras.

The Telegraph quoted former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, who is standing for by-elections this week, as saying that this statistic provided "further damning evidence of Big Brother's (Brown Government's) expensive tastes."

Describing it as a huge waste of taxpayers' money, Davis said that such policies undermine freedom and are utterly ineffective in fighting crime or terrorism.

Davis further said that: "It will undermine some of the fundamental principles of our justice, it will give the terrorists a propaganda coup and it may actually make the threat of terrorism worse."

Ministers, however, have denied that the ID card system will cost as much as the TaxPayers' Alliance report says. They also insist that CCTV has the backing of the public and have challenged opponents to say which cameras they would "pull down" in the name of civil liberties. (ANI)