HOW I FEEL ABOUT THE GCSB BILL

So hard to tell which direction the politics are coming from these days

Things would be very different if I was in charge. They'd be worse. WAY worse.

"glennzb, just where do your political loyalties lie?" you may be asking. Even if you are not asking, I'll still answer, otherwise this would be my shortest Glog ever.

The answer is, I have no political loyalties whatsoever. There was a time I probably agreed more with the left-hand side of things than the right, but only in a general way. These days, with those same allegedly left-wing people making racist noises about not letting foreigners buy houses, I confess to being a bit confused about what the left and right actually stand for.

If I'm being totally honest with you, I am perhaps a bit anti-government altogether. There's always been a rather anarchic side to me that wonders what would happen if there was no government whatsoever and we were all just left to our own devices.

Presumably a state of utter lawlessness would quickly ensue, immediately followed by total moral decay and a complete breakdown of society. Inevitably, gangs of motorcycle mounted cannibals would soon be roaming the land, feasting on the vital organs of those of us too meek or weak to defend ourselves.

Still, survival of the fittest and all that.

Like I say, just as well I'm not in charge. At heart, I'm probably a bit subversive. Always have been.

However, there's another part of me that thinks it's pretty important to have a few subversives running around out there, asking hard questions, shaking things up a bit. If the people in charge never have to justify their actions and policies, that means sooner or later they just start doing whatever they want and before you know it, gangs of motorcycle mounted maneaters are back in the picture ordering their kidney/liver/spleen combos at the nearest cannibal cuisine drive-thru.

I suppose this is all a very simplistic way of looking at things and there are far more complicated issues to take into account. Just little details, like protecting our shores from foreign invasion and maintaining a stable economy. If a few "subversives" have to be held in check to ensure those little details aren't threatened, that's just something we'll have to swallow for the greater good, right?

It's this belief that seems to be at the very heart of the GCSB debate.

Again, and again, and again, and again we hear people say, "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear." This, on the face of it, is absolutely correct. In fact, it's probably a truism.

Trouble is, where is the line between having "nothing to hide," and handing over every detail of your life to... well, to whom exactly? As things currently stand, I was under the impression, (perhaps mistakenly if recent allegations are borne out) I was under the impression I had a right to privacy.

Being private doesn't automatically make you a terrorist or a criminal. Being private might mean you feel free to share your honest opinions and beliefs with your friends, family and colleagues, WITHOUT sharing them with strangers. Maybe YOUR opinions and beliefs are diametrically opposed to the opinions and beliefs of those strangers. If those strangers happen to be the ones in charge, does that make you subversive?

All I know is, governments and lawmakers tend to be more popular when they are answerable to the people. That means the people having the freedom to ask their government and lawmakers hard questions. Very difficult to formulate those hard questions if you have to watch every word you speak, write or text in private.

I understand the benefit of a co-ordinated approach to gathering information on bad guys... it's gathering information on good guys that makes me nervous - especially if we're not sure who's deciding the difference between the two.

I'd like to think I have "nothing to hide," but I'm still not ready to give up my right to privacy just because somebody else does.

What happens when glennzb is left in charge