Slashdot Mirror
Is the West Building Its Own Iron Curtain?
New submitter pefisher writes "The British are apparently admitting that they track their citizens as they travel the world (through information provided by intelligence agencies) and are arresting them if they have been somewhere that frightens them. 'Sir Peter, who leads the Association of Chief Police Officer's "Prevent" strategy on counter-terrorism, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that those returning from Syria "may well be charged and investigated, but they will be put into our programmes".' The program seems to consist of being spied on by the returnee's cooperative neighbors."
In discussions about government spying and surveillance, there is often a vocal group who says "if you don't have anything to hide, then this spying should not bother you."
The counter argument is that governments have tended to take information they are given and when the right person is in power, or the right sentiment strikes the public, those programs are expanded and distorted beyond their original intent.
I'm sure in the 1970s and 1980s when these programs were first beginning to be set up, they had noble intentions of only ever targeting known criminals and spys, and eventually were justified by saying that if makes people feel more secure in a post-9/11 world.
But the reality is, even without these programs, we live in the safest time that humanity has ever seen. The odds of dying of a freak accident like choking on a grape are more real to the average person than terrorism, or crime.
This is not the right solution to this invented problem.
Exactly. Like the United States. They start or get involved in many, may wars, spy on every other nation on earth and even track their own people like dogs with microchips under their skin.
If you're traveling to the US your intentions surely must be questioned.
Spot on. I just lost my modpoints, or I wouldn't be commenting, I'd be promoting.
Like all rational policy, there needs to be some sort of risk/reward analysis objectively performed on the "security" aparatus in the West. For 100 years of claiming superiority as the "first" world, we seem to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater at an alarming rate seemingly in reaction to the various growing pains in the "second" (and, in some cases, "third") world. What happened to our example? Even more frighteningly, what WILL happen? The massive security aparatus of the West (and, obviously, the US first and foremost) represents an enormous risk to future security of the freeman. And, it counters an absolutely miniscule risk in comparison. This is no sensible policy. I pray to God (literally) that this is reversible.
Iron curtain, no. Stasi, maybe.
You forgot some pertinent facts: The U.S. has a long history of funding terrorists, supporting coups, and undermining democracies.
"There are certain places in the world that if you go you should be setting off alarm bells."
I see. Guilt by association is now okay? That's news to me.
I don't give the slightest damn where people go. It's what they do when they get there that matters.
While it might not be like an "iron curtain", per se, it certainly IS like a dictatorial police state.
You're being ridiculously blind to our actions, making a blanket statement they were necessary for the very existence of the U.S.A. rather than often bone-headed moves that not only were against our supposed morals (e.g., freedom, democracy, not-mass-murdering) but also ended up biting us in the ass and incurring loss of life that otherwise wouldn't have happened. If we actually acted as a country in a way that we say we believe in, we'd probably had a much better last 50 years.
So true. Definitely not home of the brave after remotely bombing so many children and innocents.
$