I missed this when it was reported but the anger is not diminished because of that. Austrian tourists Klaus Matzka and his teenage son Loris, on a recent visit to London, did what all tourists do – they took photographs. Photographs of buildings, photographs of London Buses and one – believe it or not – of Vauxhall underground station. They apparently liked the architecture. They also snapped a couple of London bobbies but it was to be their undoing when the policemen then forced them to delete all the photos from their camera. The police also took details on the pair including their passport numbers.

Under Section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, photographing a policeman within the city can land you a fine or a 10-year prison sentence. Did you know that? Which brings us to the crux of the problem. The attacks on our London bus and tube network in July 2007 were an outrage that we shall not easily forget and dealing with the aftermath of such an attack is a tricky business.

At one end of the scale is the stance that, as a nation, we don’t give in to terrorism. Life goes on as usual with the threat of another attack always just around the corner. We hunt down the perpetrators, we improve our intelligence gathering so as to thwart other attacks wherever possible but we stand tall and proud and state clearly that this is our way of life and a small band of people intent on destroying that will change nothing.

At the other end of the scale we pass all kinds of draconian laws, start to limit peoples freedoms, ban people from gathering in large groups in ’sensitive’ places and grant the police powers that will induce wet-dreams to all those that love the uniform and authority. And this is exactly what our political masters have done.

The problem, of course, is that the government still recites the mantra that we do not give in to terrorism. But the actions that have been taken do exactly that. Our way of life and our freedoms, so carefully won over centuries of our history as a nation, are being stripped away piece by piece and this is not only ‘giving in to terrorists’ – it is rewarding them with exactly what they want.

The United Kingdom has the extremely dubious honour of having more public CCTV cameras than any other in the world (for its population size).

A 2007 report by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, highlighted the need for the public to be made more aware of the “creeping encroachment” into their civil liberties created by the growing use of surveillance apparatus. A year prior to the report Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, warned that Britain was “sleepwalking into a surveillance society”.

It also appears that we are equally sleepwalking into the beginnings of a Police State. This weeks news that the Home Office intends to go ahead with demanding that Internet service and cell phone service providers record and keep data on every phone call we make, every website we visit, every email we send and every contact made through the web or instant messaging systems, is proof of the decline of our basic freedoms and the encroachment into every part of our lives of ‘authority’. Wikipedia defines a Police State as one:

in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population. A police state typically exhibits elements of totalitarianism and social control, and there is usually little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive.

The inhabitants of a police state experience restrictions on their mobility, and on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views, which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force which operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state.

Ask a native of Britain if they live in a Police State and they will almost certainly laugh at the very notion. Examine the evidence of state behaviour – surveillance, monitoring of communications, detention without charge, restrictions of movement, restrictions on gathering in groups and the right to publicly protest and it becomes a little clearer that we are teetering on the edge of a new era that contradicts everything this country has stood for up until now.

Ask Klaus Matzka and his son Loris and they will almost certainly answer that this new era has already arrived.