Aardvark

[Bruce Simpson]

This column is archived at: http://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2008/0620.shtml

Sweden has joined the ranks of those paranoid nations that choose to spy on their own citizens' emails and phone calls.

I bet Osama and his cowardly cronies are partying-large today.

In adopting these massive restrictions on personal privacy and freedoms in response to the 9/11 bombings, have we handed the terrorists a far larger victory than they could ever have hoped for?

And will these attempts to monitor and intercept terrorist conversations ultimately prove futile anyway?

Don't you think that O-bin-L knows how to use encryption software? Don't you think they have well educated fanatics within their ranks who can easily harness off-the-shelf technology to render this monitoring ineffective?

The only people who are *really* affected by "the right to snoop" are innocent citizens who have been roundly duped by their governments.

We are not fighting a war against terror -- we have said "the terrorists win, we will imprison our people in the shackles of paranoia".

I don't know about you but I really would prefer to die on my feet than live on my knees.

We have far more violent and dangerous enemies than O-bin-L and his cowardly buddies.

Where's the "war against P", the "war against bad driving", the "war against alcohol abuse", the "war against bad parenting"?

All of these things claim far more lives every year than a bunch of dust-munching fanatics ever could.

But the biggest question would have to be-- why are four million supposedly intelligent Kiwis simply laying down and taking the loss of rights, freedom and privacy that have already been handed down to them by the NZ government?

And is there anything to do, on a personal level, to show the terrorists that they have *not* won?

[azzaaaaa]

9/11 was an inside job.

The patriot act was drafted long before september 01.

If the pancake theory is true why then don't we see 'squibs' from every single floor rather than just the ones where it is asusmed the cutting charges were placed.

explain the wtc7 collapse.

explain the norad war games (Northern Vigilance, Global Guardian, Vigilant Guardian and a couple more) being played out on the same day (one involving aircraft being used as a weapon) and the bushes and rices saying that they had no idea that terrorists would use aircraft as weapons.

While you are at it explain the terrorist response exercise that ran during the 7/7 bombings, Peter Power gave an interview to ITV about it.

Governments have been pulling crap like this for a long time.

Osama Bin Laden is a CIA asset and his famimly has close ties with the Bush family.

Take a look at who has been most affected since these massive deletions of freedom - 99.5% are just like you and me.

Who stands to gain, well with the laptop at the border thing its pretty obvious (riaa/mpaa).

The trouble with wars against insertthinghere is that they generally have the opposite effect. drug use has increased since the war on drugs started, the war on illiteracy has resulted in more kids unable to read or write with one exception: the war on terror. but it seems to be fulfilling its purpose by shutting everyone up as the steamroller of governmental bureaucracy erodes some more freedoms.

New Zealanders trust their government (even with all the muck raking the media attempts) and will continue to because a.) it's easy b.) it's easy.

A little known fact about governments is that they were responsible for the deaths of 170,000,000 of their OWN citizens in the last century, it makes me laugh when people say the US government couldn't have killed 3k of their own on 9/11.

All you can do is wake people up and hope to reach a critical mass at which point we can have a revolution of some description, better make it quick though. While we have reality TV and other distractions taking up the sheeples time don't expect it to be easy.

i realise a lot of you arent going to agree with most of what i just said but the majority of it is undisputably true.

[jonmac807]

Hi Bruce

Have you read the article in this morning's Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10517367

Seems your comments are even more relevant than perhaps you realised when you penned the article.

[Bruce Simpson]

[niconz]

And the problem is that not one of the mainstream political parties in NZ appears to be standing up for civil rights. We really need a decent party that has the freedom of personal choice as their platform (but not as extreme as Libertarianz, who appear a little too out there for me).

[zkarj]

[Flets]

So, who can tell me whether more people were killed on US roads in September 2001 or during the terrorist acts of 911?

[smeenz]

[uKoda]

I had a slightly heated debate with my girlfriend about what I see as a largely waste of time intruding on person freedoms. On my last trip to the USA I wasted a lot of my time with the security process and at one point was subject to an irritating extended pat down that made me feel like I was in a TV comedy routine given how farcical and pointless it was for. Aside from wasting 15 minutes of my time it was also somewhat intimidating and unpleasant.

Locally I think the scanning etc for internal flights is a waste of time. Why would anyone both, what worthwhile targets are in range for short haul 737?

My argument was two fold, firstly the USA has already lost the war on terror because they have given up most of the freedoms they had and laugh ever time I hear them use the phrase "Land of the free". The second part of my argument is NZ is not a worthy target for terrorist and for internal flights why all the drama?

Of course my girlfriend's view is different. As a paramedic in Israel she had the job of collecting body parts after terrorist attacks and had found friends dead. She had also been present during an attack and seen people die first hand. She also had been involved with the interrogation of terrorists. Such experiences won't leave you unaffected and she is certain the US is doing the right thing and it's a small price to pay for protection. I might concede she has a point on that issue.

She is equally certain that there will be a terror attack here. On that I did disagree with her as, while it is possible, I just don't think we are noteworthy enough to be a target. Who would attack who and why? What could they hope to change here? What do they think needs changed. The only thing I could see happening is some radical political group taking symbolic action but most as smart enough to know if you hurt innocent members of the public you will do your cause more harm than good.