The surveillance state is on the scent in Germany
This Guardian headline reads like something from The Onion:
German police use Stasi scent profiling on G8 protesters
Unfortunately, it's real:
Scent traces collected directly from everything from people's palm sweat to their vests and cigarette lighters have been made available to investigators so that sniffer dogs can detect potentially violent protesters, federal prosecutors confirmed yesterday following reports in the German media.
[...]
The revelations have immediately led to comparisons with the methods of the former East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, who habitually collected the scents of dissidents to identify suspects at a later date.
[...]
"[This is] another step away from a democratic state of law towards a preventive security state," said Petra Pau, a member of the opposition Left party. "A state that adopts the methods of the East German Stasi robs itself of every legitimacy."
Once the surveillance state is allowed to grow, it quickly grows out of control. As one example, the UK began installing CCTV cameras in response to IRA bombings, but the use of these cameras has mushroomed far beyond their original purpose:
The exact number of CCTV cameras in the UK is not known but a 2002 working paper by Michael McCahill and Clive Norris of UrbanEye, based on a small sample in Putney High Street, estimated the number of surveillance cameras in private premises in London is around 400,000 and the total number of cameras in the UK is around 4,000,000. The UK has one camera for every 14 people.
After civil liberties have been surrendered, there's no going back:
Britain is in danger of "committing slow social suicide" as such Big Brother techniques as surveillance cameras and recording equipment spread into every aspect of our lives, the nation's information watchdog will warn this week.
A new report from Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, will say that the public needs to be made more aware of the "creeping encroachment" on civil liberties created by email monitoring, CCTV and computer tracking of our buying habits.
One would think the Germans would have learned from their own history. Of course, ten years ago, the Patriot Act and warrantless eavesdropping would have been unthinkable.