Anything to hide?

The usual response to those who express concern at the various 'New' Labour laws that limit our civil liberties has been that "those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear". My usual retort is that those with nothing to hide should get out more, but Damien Green has now highlighted the utter and complete fallacy of this most fatuous of justifications.

Damien Green was released without charge. No allegation of wrongdoing has been made, and the suggestion has been merely that he received leaks that embarrassed Labour. I am therefore going to assume that he did nothing wrong.

Presumably, therefore, he had nothing to hide. Indeed, his alleged crime was in not hiding the leaks he received. However, he had the following to fear:

• 9 anti-terror police banging on his door
• 7 hours in custody
• 2 hours of questioning
• the ransacking of his home office
• the ransacking of his Commons office
• the confiscation of his PC
• the confiscation of his mobile
• the freezing of his email address.

If this list is tantamount to "nothing", then in the immortal words of Ian Hislop, I am a banana.