WITH reference to fingerprinting schoolchildren (Thumbs down, The Press, January 6), one head teacher comments in your article that "the world has no answer to terrorism without using these things".

This shows the insidious way we persuade each other that reducing the liberties of the majority makes us safe.

Why is it that in streets packed with more CCTV cameras than any other western nation we allow certain people an opt-out?

Three men entering a bank in balaclavas are an evident threat, but three figures hidden beneath full-face veils on a crowded Tube train are simply making a cultural expression of difference.

The Government imposes ID cards on us, bearing "biometric" information, and anything else they want on the microchip: about our friends, our politics, our religion. But we won't have the right to know what is stored on the cards, so we will be unable to challenge errors.

The tiresome argument that "if you are innocent what have you got to fear" is nonsense. None of this stuff is meant to provide an opportunity for the innocent to walk with their heads held high; we're sold it on the basis that it will catch criminals and terrorists. If it fails to do that, it's worthless junk.

Honest people of every race and religion (Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, and atheist alike) are having their rights eroded year on year, by a Government failing to tackle the real and glaring loopholes that put us all at risk.

We need a written constitution, which defines the rights of all UK citizens, one that ensures the same civil liberties for everybody.

I suspect that "thumbprints for library books" is simply an ill-considered technological gimmick, but what it says about the disregard for civil liberties is telling.

Coun Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York.