The British Government is currently in the process of introducing new border controls and this, from the UK Border Agency website, is why: "The aim of the e-Borders programme is to transform our border control to ensure greater security, effectiveness, and efficiency."

Well that sounds brilliant, doesn't it? I, for one, think security, effectiveness and efficiency all sound like good things. It's also called 'e-Borders', which made me think about how much better 'e-mail' is than boring old 'mail', so I was pretty excited.

My enthusiasm was abruptly curtailed, however, when Eddie Redfearn, of Thomson holidays, recently described the plans as "travel chaos". Perhaps he had noticed that forcing all travellers in and out of Britain to tell the Government the address and contact number of every location they plan to stay, their vehicle number and their credit card details, not to mention the phasing in of mandatory finger printing within the next few years, was not necessarily going to fit most people's definition of 'efficient'. Representatives from ferry and train operators soon added their voices to the dissent, arguing that the system was being rushed in and would cause major delays.

However, the more I learned about e-Borders, the more long delays became less of a pressing concern. A much bigger worry is how much information the Government is gathering about every one of its citizens, and if you are unwilling or unable to provide any of the required information, perhaps just because you decided to travel spontaneously, you will be, as their own website states, "unlikely to be allowed to travel." This is not only a terrifying and arbitrary abuse of state power, it's also almost certainly illegal. EU law enshrines the free movement of people, and the likes of Tim Reardon of the Chamber of Shipping have argued that stopping people travelling because they won't or can't tell you where they are heading will breach this law. Are legally dubious check-points really an 'effective' use of the £750 million - £1.2 billion e-Borders is estimated to cost, costs which will largely be passed on to travel operators and then to customers?

And nobody, in Government or anywhere else, seems to have to justify this hassle and expenditure. Will e-Borders actually make any of us more secure? It's unlikely. The people who carried out the 9/11 attacks had all entered America legally, and the bombings of July 7th 2005, the largest and deadliest terrorist attack in the history of London's transport system, were planned and carried out by four British men who were previously unknown to police. They would not even have come into contact with e-Borders. Security from terror attacks will come not from introducing costly, time consuming border controls but from creating a society which does not alienate sections of its own population – the very feeling this heavy-handed impersonation of a Police State will exacerbate.

The weird thing is that the Government must know all this. So either they are knowingly lying to us, or they've decided to set up a massive role-play version of George Orwell's '1984' without telling anyone, and words now have opposite meanings. "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength." "Delays are Efficiency; Waste is Effectiveness; Assailability is Security."

e-Borders is not about security, effectiveness or efficiency. It is about controlling the populace, breeding fear and suspicion and gradually eroding our freedoms and civil liberties. Another Ctrl.Alt.Shift writer and I were filmed and had our movements recorded by the British police earlier this year while getting onto a coach to Strasbourg simply because there was known to be a political protest happening there. If these plans continue the only time we will be allowed to leave the country will be in Government-approved herds. Freedom of travel will become a blurry memory, another victim of The War on Fun. It is essential we use our voices as constituents and voters now to act as our very own border control and stop the UK moving over the line from liberal democracy to surveillance state.

Photo: Provided by Flickr user nedrichards and dcgreer