A news story that may be a quirk or may be significant of the direction we are going in.
BBC promotes British interests this morning by informing us that a British company has developed an underwater sensor which can help protect harbours from terrorist attack, and can even distinguish between dolphins and underwater divers.
The company is the strangely named QinetiQ, and was formerly the scientific development section of the Ministry of Defence.
http://www.qinetiq.com/services/sensing/services.html
Its home page suggests an even wider range of commercial activities. Presumably it maintains a host of personal contacts with its secret parent organisation, the boundary with which is presumably semi-permeable.
Security becomes the control of knowledge in an expanding mixed economy. Legal and ethical boundaries are blurred.
Chris Burford London
