Yet again we are being told that the threat of “mass murder” means that civil liberties have to be curtailed in the interests of security and protection of the populace.

This time, it is Home Secretary John Reid speaking about the introduction of biometric surveillance at airports across Europe to identify potential tourists.

Mr Reid’s said, in comments reported by The Scotsman under the heading “Every airport traveller ‘will be fingerprinted”, that human rights would have to be balanced against the threat from terrorism and that the current terror threat was Europe-wide and needed to be tackled on an international level. (For balanced, read curtailed.)