nourishing obscurity

There is far too much material here to take in at one glance but essentially, it is hints and tips for whistleblowers, concerning computers, phones, mobiles and so on.  As I read into it a fair way, it became apparent that this was almost what the government would call a “terrorists’ handbook”.

There’s the rub.

Take a seemingly innocuous site such as Wat Tyler’s Burning our Money.   Wat is protected by the high reputation of his blog and his connection with the worthy TPA.  So they won’t touch him … yet.  Other blogs such as that of Watching Them Watching Us might be less fortunate  because they don’t have the inbuit protections although they do have net-savvy and that buys at least something.

On one side of the argument, most conservatives [real ones - not the Cameronites] would agree we need lawful living where the criminals and not the innocent are charged, where the courts work in and convict criminals unflinchingly and where the public supports the police at a local level.  It’s in all our interests to have a safe environment in which to work and live.

On the other side, of course, is the current reality, the realization that the police, as an extension of the new State, is not your friend at all.  In Moscow, I once went up to a militsia man to ask help, in the same way people used to go up to bobbies on our streets and ask directions.  After I’d returned from my trip and had told a few people what I’d done, they were flabbergasted – I’d actually approached a militz?  Hoping to be helped?  I was told not to try anything like that again.

Speaking personally, I resent being lumped in with terrorists and malcontents because I’ve always been a person loyal to the team and my position in the workplace was always to protect the school or the university or the platoon or whatever.  Loyalty to the group has always been part of the persona.  All that changed some years before I started blogging – there was a correspondence with a friend in America and it seemed as clear as day that the U.S. had no intention of withdrawing from Iraq by 2003, despite protestations that it would do so.

That was where a naturally inquiring mind met the gap between stated intentions and reality in the public sphere and the rest, as they say, is history.

WTWU writes:

The unaccountable taxpayer subsidised private company, the Association of Chief Police Officers, has now published a “micro-site” about its complicated and even more unaccountable and secretive Domestic Extremism quangos. http://www.acpo.police.uk/ncde/

The site says:

Unlike terrorism, which is defined in the UK by the Terrorism Act 2000, there is no equivalent legal definition for domestic extremism. This is because the crimes committed by those considered a domestic extremist already exist in common law or statute.

Google Gavin Ayling RIPA or click here and you’ll see the notorious Rest In Peace Act.  As Gavin writes:

Section 22 sets out the reasons you can be spied upon by your own government:

It is necessary on grounds falling within this subsection to obtain communications data if it is necessary-

(a) in the interests of national security;
(b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder;
(c) in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom;
(d) in the interests of public safety;
(e) for the purpose of protecting public health;
(f) for the purpose of assessing or collecting any tax, duty, levy or other imposition, contribution or charge payable to a government department;
(g) for the purpose, in an emergency, of preventing death or injury or any damage to a person’s physical or mental health, or of mitigating any injury or damage to a person’s physical or mental health; or
(h) for any purpose (not falling within paragraphs (a) to (g)) which is specified for the purposes of this subsection by an order made by the Secretary of State.

Now section (h) here requires both Houses of Parliament to review the draft order, but what the hell does (c) mean if it’s not the same as (b)?   How do you measure (d) and doesn’t (f) tell you all you need to know about road pricing?

I grew up believing that civil rights activists were leftist commies and that Daniel Ellsberg was a dangerous criminal.  Kissinger was a hero and world peace bringer.  The notion that Ellsberg was a hero and Kissinger a war criminal did not occur to any of us.

Rene Mathis in Quantum of Solace said:

But I guess when one is young, it seems very easy to distinguish between right and wrong but as one gets older, it becomes more difficult – the villains and the heroes get all mixed up.

It’s been said by many that we are moving into a “post-democratic” era where the State becomes the economy, the law giver and enforcer, where one’s abode is no longer sacrosanct, [it used to require very good and provable reason for authorities to break in] and where this is the case in every western nation.  Food and water are coming under control too and people are becoming even further removed from the food chain.

And still people refuse to see.

Stages of disenchantment

For a start, there is a complete difference between an alien culture imposing itself on us and us being not enchanted by that.  The former falls into the category of “terrorist” and people who support this fall into the category of “traitor” and “quisling”.  We fall into the category of “loyalist”.

When the quislings and traitors become the majority though, the resisters who want to retain the indigenous culture are now publicly given the above epithets and they move from “law-abiding citizen” to “dangerous insurgents”, “partisans” and “resistance”.

Look at the photo at the top – are they good or bad people?  The State at the time considered them dangerous traitors.

H/T IPJ

Filed under: Society & human issues