Remember the Berlin Wall? It was one of the last relics of the Cold War. Built in 1961, it was a symbol of backward thinking politicians, persecution and the loss of personal freedom until it was torn down in 1989. You might also remember Ronald Reagan’s famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” How dramatic that line was! It’s still used in stirring and patriotic speeches about God Bless America and freedom. Unfortunately, the western world is far less free than it was in 1989.
This week, Canada will enact legislation that will allow police and governments to spy on its citizens without a warrant of any kind. The legislation will force ISPs to provide vast amounts of information without any kind of judicial control. Canadians, showing their natural good humour (we spell it with the ‘u’), reacted to this legislation by using Twitter to make fun of the government minister who promoted the bill. We tweeted everything we were doing, everything we were thinking and everything that our cats and dogs were doing. Providing a mass of unrelated information just might be a way to hide your tracks if you are up to something sinister. Unfortunately, this would also hide real criminals and terrorists from being identified.
Hasan Elahi used much the same kind of tactic when he was questioned by the FBI for six months in 2009. Here’s a description of what he did: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/giving-the-fbi-what-it-wants.html?pagewanted=all
Hasan’s website is here: http://www.elahi.umd.edu/track/ and you can track him virtually everywhere in the world. He’s taken privacy to a whole other level. By making himself completely open in all of his activities, he has invented a way to, perhaps, cloak his actions in behind a wall of transparency. Here he is on Youtube (Ted TV):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAdwurHhv-I
explaining what happened and how he handled the situation.
Americans have already lost their freedoms. You might not know it but you have. The NSA, the FBI, the CIA and even the EOP (look it up) are already spying on you. Through the use of expert scaremongering, successive presidents and legislators have teamed up to deny your constitutional rights. The Occupy riots have proven that even the most basic right of freedom of assembly, is long gone.
Canadians are by nature quite peaceful. This bill, hopefully, will stir us into action to defeat the government that introduced and supported it. Our political system is different from the American system. If we get ticked off with the current party in power, it’s not unusual for us to completely trash them in the next election. We’re not a two party country up here and we don’t vote along team lines. It’s a little bit harder for Americans to get rid of a party that threatens to limit their freedom but it’s still possible. As the Arab Spring might* have shown us, change is possible if we work collectively to promote it. Isn’t it curious that the communist principle of a collective voice against oppression seems to be the ideal tool in our post-capitalist society.
Thanks for reading. I’d love to see a few comments on this post.
*I say ‘might’ simply because neither Egypt or Libya seems to have succeeded in enacting the ideals that they fought for. In the power vacuum that was created after the ouster of the old leaders, it seems that the military in both countries has taken over. Just as church and state should be separate, there is no place in the world for a military state.