Double standards

I am at a loss. As the “hacking” case against Rebecca Brooks and Andy Coulson opens and the country is made to feel repulsion because of their  intrusion into the phone and email communication of a number of people who were deemed to be of public interest. It seems we are engaged, yet again in double standards.                                                                                                                            

Brooks and Coulson are appearing in Court having been accused of breaking the law. What I ask is the difference between their actions and those of the “Security Services”, both here and in the USA. The surveillance of private communication is deemed ok when undertaken by the State but illegal when carried out by a member of the public?

We are asked to”forgo” our sense of right and wrong by invoking the call of National Security which it seems, trumps all our engrained belief in the Law and its supposed equality of treatment for all people within the national boundary .

Double standards are rapidly becoming the norm and in so doing, they destroy the fabric of trust that is vitally important for society in accepting its governance and the bodies who are elected to carry out the task.