Jackie Smith may have resigned. Alan Johnson may be the new Home Secretary. But neither event guarantees that any government led by Gordon Brown will pose any the less of a threat to our civil liberties.

Back in January this blog discussed alleged British government plans to require everybody wishing to acquire a mobile phone to first prove their identity.

Subsequently we have also commented on some of the more “benevolent” ways mobile phone tracking of your whereabouts could be exploited.

But it is a subject to which we should arguably return, if only because of two separate stories published in the last couple days.

The first reported on how the Bangladeshi government intends to combat crimes such as extortion, terrorism and militancy “by tracking the cellphones of extortionists, terrorists and militants.”

The second stated that China, the country with the highest number of cellphone subscribers in the world, may soon require all new users to register their identity with their carrier. According to this report “the new regulation” is supposedly necessary “to fight against unsolicited advertisements, scams and bank fraud via short messages, experts said.”

Shanghai residents have had to show their identity papers when acquiring a phone since 2006.

With memories of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the more recent repression in Tibet still fresh, few are unaware that China boasts a human rights record that is less than exemplary.

Sadly, Bangladesh is little better. A state of emergency was imposed at the beginning of 2007 prohibiting participation in any processions, meetings, assemblies or demonstrations, unless they are in support of the government or related to religious or social occasions.

According to Amnesty International, the 2007 Emergency Power Regulations allowing law enforcement personnel to arrest without a warrant anyone merely suspected of seeking to engage in a "prejudicial act" or commit a crime are so broadly formulated as to be open to abuse. And, Amnesty note, Bangladesh is a country where beatings, electric shocks and the suspension of those who offend the state from ceilings are not entirely unknown.

Of course, you may wonder why Bangladesh has any need to track “the cellphones of extortionists, terrorists and militants.” By definition their identities must already be known, and the authorities really should know the address of the jail in which they are being detained.

Conversely, if their guilt has yet to be proven, and they are merely suspects, they could be anybody, and logically the Bangladeshi government will have to track the cellphones of everybody.

At this point authoritarians, such as those attempting to justify the creation of a universal DNA database, invariably parrot the seductive suggestion that “if you are innocent, you have nothing to fear.” Some small loss of our civil liberties, they say, is the price we necessarily have to pay to be saved from criminals and terrorists. Such words are only the thin end of the wedge. Left unspoken is the implicit accusation that only the guilty can or will object.

With cell site analysis permitting the location of my mobile phone to be plotted to within a few metres, and a GPS enabled handset to within a few feet, I constantly carry an electronic tag that tells my network operator exactly where I am whenever my phone is switched on.

I am happy for this to be the case, given my operator needs the information in order to provide me with a mobile phone service, and for no other purpose without my explicit consent.

But where I happen to be and what I might or might not be doing is of no concern to the government, unless they have firm grounds to believe I am about to commit an illegal act. And those grounds must always be justified to a judge, and be open to proper legal scrutiny.

Consequently, with the change of Home Secretary, we can only hope no more will be heard from our government of plans similar to those announced in China and Bangladesh.

Unfortunately we probably still have to remember what Thomas Jefferson really should have said: “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance”.