Dear Mick,

People have different emotional reactions to events like the recent Tsunami and to people making jokes about it.

I reacted to seeing people search for jokes about the Tsunami. It distressed me when the dead had not even been found let alone buried. I am not saying I was right to do what I did or that the persons seeking jokes are wrong or sick. It is their way of coping, mine - at that point in my life - was to do what I did.

freedomforall.net is not a joke website. It is a political comment site, Buddhist inspired, and the main theme is the needless deaths poverty inflicts in our world.

I believe that when people honestly examine their minds to establish why they behave the way they do the world becomes a better place. I have examined mine and realised there are things I wish to change and do differently. I would not behave that way again for exactly the reasons you point out and because I do believe deeply in freedom.

However when public servants spend their time at work trawling the net for personal matters any citizen has a right to be concerned. We live in an age of personal irresponsibility and corporate wastage which is ruining our planet. Public institutions in this country used to have a public service ethos which Thatcher ruined because of her personal belief that there “is no such thing as society”.

Personally I believe that a good society is the only hope we have of undoing the dilemmas we are now faced with. I am an anarchist however (which I know will make you fall off your chair laughing) and believe that good society must come from within individual persons who are willing to face up to themselves and take responsibility.

By the way, I did not advise Edinburgh council to do anything other than advise employees that their internet activities were a) trace-able and b) reflected on the council. If this makes me a sick, petty, authoritarian, informer I live in a different universe to you.

Best Wishes

Matthew Jee

Mick Hume comments on my actions in the Times Online