The UK Government plans to introduce an e-borders scheme, costing £1.2billion and linking government agencies, travel industry systems and transport hubs like ports, airports, major railway stations

Thousands of people booked to travel in and out of Scotland from Spring 2009 will be electronically screened and their details checked against the Government’s databases. Permission to enter or leave the UK will be granted or denied before the start of their journey.

The e-borders system also prepares security ground for Scottish and Northern Irish independence as screened main exit and entry points in these countries could easily be used to treat them as separate nations.

This has implications for Ireland as a whole. There is no possible logic to exclude Northern Irish ports and airports from the planned UK-wide e-borders system. What will the inclusion of Northern Ireland in this dubious surveillance do to relations in the island of Ireland? Has the UK Government thought about any of these consequences?

There will be an impact on the business of travelling as people will be required to book their passages earlier to allow time for their details to be transferred and checked.

Spokesman on aviation and maritime issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, Deputy Chief Constable Bill Skelly, has told The Herald: ‘It is about advance notification. Airlines will have to notify e-borders with the details of passengers. That information then goes into a central database where it will be checked against the police national computer and those on the wanted index.

‘If someone is flagged, then before they arrive in the UK an alert will go out. We have to consider how to respond. As the numbers go up we will have to look at prioritising them. We may not be able to chase every fine defaulter but if someone is wanted for murder or there is a European arrest warrant for them we can ensure we are there waiting for them when they land. The database also analyses information about patterns of travel behaviour. Until we know which routes are involved we cannot predict exact numbers but there will be thousands checked coming in and out of Scotland’.

This neatly places the emphasis on the system checking incomers – but it is equally designed to check and impound outgoing travellers. So if you are in dispute over a parking fine or if you’re late with your road tax or your television licence, you would be naive to imagine that you will travel out of Scotland without embarrassment and delay at the least.

The UK Government’s track record is to use inappropriate but applicable legislation to do what it wants. Hence the recent use of David Blunkett’s handy anti-terrorist legislation against Iceland to impound UK assets of failing Icelandic banks. Hence too the use of the same loosely-written law to arrest and charge protesters against the war in Iraq, including a young woman, Maya Evans, simply and quietly reading aloud in London’s Westminster area the names of servicemen killed in that conflict.

We associate the word ‘fascist’ with Nazi Germany, tin hats and shouts of ‘Heil HItler’. We think that what we feel that word means could never happen here. It is actually happening and it has been happening for some time. It just doesn’t feel like our comic-book inspired imaginations said it would.

We also associate ‘fascism’ with things like the former East German state’s secret police – Stasi – and the detailed files it kept on all state citizens.

The UK’s multi-million pound e-borders Semaphore pilot project, which began in 2004, covered 10 international routes, screened 29 million passengers and led to 1000 arrests. The new and extended system proposed will cost £1.2billion and screen 120 million people. Add in the planned national ID database – which is already in stealth introduction, carrying biometric data and Stasi will look like very small beer indeed.

What sort of society do we want to live in? Is this really it? June 2009 is likely to be make-our-mind-up time.