Slashdot Mirror
European Countries Seek Sweeping New Powers To Curb Terrorism
New submitter cooler-than-ice (3981829) writes with this story from the Washington Post: Belgian leaders on Friday sought sweeping new powers to monitor and punish their citizens for involvement with terrorism, joining France in an effort to rewrite laws just hours after dozens of arrests across Europe offered dramatic evidence of the threats security officials say are facing the continent.
From the article: Apart from expanding powers to strip citizenship for dual nationals, Belgian leaders on Friday proposed devoting an additional $348 million to counterterrorism efforts. They also said they wanted the ability to take away identity documents to make it more difficult for people to travel to Syria and elsewhere. ... “As a result of the events in Paris, combined with what happened yesterday in Belgium, the political unanimity is quite great,” said Rik Coolsaet, a terrorism expert at Ghent University. “It is a bit of 9/11 syndrome.”
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats — and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism. Leaders this week called for new legislation to significantly bolster domestic intelligence agencies.
Disclaimer (for benefit of the knee-jerk-reactionaries): I passionately hate Al Qaeda, the so-called 'Islamic State', and all pseudo-religious nutcases who, for some reason, think 'God' (whoever the fuck that is) wants them to cut off people's heads 'for offending the Prophet', throw acid in little girls' faces/kill little girls because they have the audacity to want to go to school/learn to read/learn history/learn to do math/learn in general, and all the rest of the bullshit these fucking assholes are out there doing/condoning/supporting. I think they all desperately need to be brought to justice for their innumerable crimes, no question about it.
..now, that all having been said:
If you don't, for more than a second or two, think that these 'sweeping powers' they want to grab (and make no mistake, it's a power-grab) are going to end up being grossly and indiscriminately mis-used to further political agendas that have nothing to do with anti-terrorism, then you are incredibly, unbelievably naive, because that's exactly, precisely what's going to happen. Euros, you need to clamp down on this shit right now, because once they get this kind of power, they will not let go of it, ever, and they will ironically enough use it to destroy whatever freedom of speech you have in your country. Mark my words.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
So you can't trust government when it comes to stopping people with a demonstrated and announced desire to poison, shoot, or blow you up...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”