Given that Stephen Clarke was arrested under Prevention of Terrorism legislation for taking photos of a sewer drain, on the basis that this information “may be useful to terrorists”, I was wondering whether the executives of Google are going to be arrested and DNA swabbed…

Why? Well it appears to me that with Google Street View, Google have not only taken photos of sewer drains, but also of the positions of various magistrates courts and police stations (see street view of NE8 1DT); but also of the positions of CCTV cameras nearby (scroll around a bit and look).

I would have thought that this information would have been of significantly more use to someone wishing to commit a terrorist act than, say, someone in the street taking a photograph of a sewer drain. I would therefore like to suggest that the Government seize all of Google’s assets in the UK under the appropriate Prevention of Terrorism / Counter-Terrorism legislation that the police use to arrest and take DNA samples of people who have simply taken a photograph of a sewer.

Unless of course the Government wish to clarify that wandering around in public taking photos is not illegal, it would be logical to assume that the police would treat this as an offence similar to the first, only obviously considerably more severe, since there appear to have been many incidents of Google taking photos of this nature.

I would presume that the executives of Google would be held directly accountable, to be held in police custody for 48 hours at least and have their DNA places on file. After all, not only do the laws apply equally to them, not only have they been responsible for the publication of a lot of photographs of this nature, but they have also actively been promoting this activity.

And of course our government will ensure that the same laws which are used to harrass and lock up our citizens will be used equally against companies and organisations. Won’t they?