Refrigerator Police! Open the Door!

Brits Grant No-Warrant Search Authority

(UK) Based upon a survey by Big Brother Watch, using Freedom of Information laws, 20,000 bureaucratic agents have been given the power to enter a person's home or business at any time without a search warrant. These are bureaucrats, mind you, not law enforcers such as police officers, firemen or Scotland Yard which would bump the total to hundreds of thousands.

Therefore, the typical British citizen must sit idly by as the recycling official, for example, enters his home to check the contents of the refrigerator or the garbage. Or when the environmental department officer barges in to check lighting fixtures for proper eco-bulbs, the resident is forced to just watch.

The bureaucrats are benefiting from the 1,043 state powers of entry in primary and secondary legislation – more than 400 of which have been created by Labour.

These include checking for fridges which do not have the correct eco-friendly energy rating, making sure a hedge is not too high and inspecting a property to ensure 'illegal or unregulated hypnotism' is not taking place.

Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, which carried out the research, said: 'Once, a man's home was his castle. Today, the Big Brother state wants to inspect, regulate and standardise the inside of our homes.

'Councils are dishing out powers of entry to officers for their own ease, without giving due thought to the public's right to privacy and the potential for abuse.'

And then there's the bureaucratic spying authority.

Town halls are also carrying out thousands of 'spying' missions under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. The law was passed nine years ago to fight terrorism, but access to the spy powers has been extended to 653 state bodies - including 474 councils.

Frankly, the Brits should be outraged that local councils have literally hundreds of paper-pushing desk jockeys with the authority to enter any home or business at any time.

It's worth mentioning that government encroachment on privacy and property of the citizenry was facilitated by banning public ownership of firearms. Only a suicidal bureaucrat would think of intruding into a home if he thought an Ithaca 12-gauge shotgun might greet him.

The British are incrementally clamping themselves to the chains of serfdom. And after serfdom, expect "re-education camps" and slavery.