Blair: War [of] Terror Will Last A Generation

September 3rd, 2010

In his first full interview since being deposed, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that the West has to be prepared for a “generation-long” war on terror.

He also said that Britain could soon be pushed into the same position with Iran as it was with Iraq in 2003. In other words, Iran can not be allowed to have nuclear weapons under any circumstances, and Britain’s new leader will have to make the tough call of going to war.

All this, of course, comes from the same man who recently testified at the Iraq War Inquiry that, oh well, Saddam Hussein didn’t really have weapons of mass destruction after all, but the whole world thought he did, and it’s good we invaded. No regrets, and Iraqis are better off materially for it.

This really ought to freeze you in your tracks! Firstly, how long is a generation anyway? Twenty-five, 30 years? So if it started after 2001, does that mean we have another 15 or 20 years of progressively more authoritarian governments and incessant wars to look forward to?

Consider the erosion of privacy and civil rights we’ve experienced since the War of Terror began. We have become progressively used to potentially dangerous and invasive full body scans at airports, surveillance of all of our communications (Internet, cell phones, snail mail, international calls), waterboarding as an acceptable “interrogation” technique, prolonged detention without trial…

All this in nine years. Factor in massively growing defense budgets and advances in technology, and I really start doubting whether I want to see what kind of a world the next generation will inherit 20 years from now, after we’re done ridding it of terror…


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Be Afraid: Google CEO Says No Anonymity, Privacy On Future Web

August 23rd, 2010

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt recently said that “true transparency and no anonymity” is the future of the Internet. And there’s nothing we can do to prevent it.

Schmidt went on to say that,

“In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it.”

We will have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, even on the Internet. All in the name of safety and security from invisible terrorists and criminals, dubbed “asynchronous threats”. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say we will have nowhere left to hide from governments.

In the same speech, Schmidt said that if enough of a user’s messaging and location data is examined, you can predict where the person will go with artificial intelligence.

And that “we” (who, Google, a government?) can identify any person given 14 pictures of themselves.

If that is not enough to raise alarm bells, consider the statement in the context of a leaked document from 2008, which shows how Google has been “wrangling” with the moral issue of whether it should use the vast amount of data it has on people’s activities on the Internet in order to increase revenue.

In other words, a global corporation wrestling with the “moral” question of whether to make money, or make a lot more money! :)

The continuation of Schmidt’s vision should be: long queues for a license to use the net. Special licenses for children under 18, restricting the type of content accessible. Internet license identity fraud. Proliferation of cyber crime causing governments to tighten access to Internet, requirements for Internet licenses… and so on.

It makes one wonder whether to continue to believe Google’s famous motto, “Don’t be evil”!

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7 Year Old Girl’s Lemonade Stand Shut Down Over $120 License

August 5th, 2010

Or, The Death of Entrepreneurship And The American Dream.

You can’t help but gawk in disbelief at a picture of a cute 7 year-old girl from Oregon, whose lemonade stand was shut down for failing to obtain a $120 temporary restaurant license.

The decision was based on public health grounds. According to the Multonmah County Health Department’s web site, she needed to contact the Department at least two weeks in advance in order to request a temporary restaurant packet, fill out the application, pay the fee and satisfy a whole list of food safety criteria… or face a $500 fine!

Which may be justified if you’re running a large-scale food stall at a fair. Setting aside the ridiculousness of the law’s application to a 7 year-old’s lemonade stand, consider this:

At 50c per glass, she would need to sell 240 glasses to cover the fee. Assuming that each glass is 250 ml, that works out to 60 liters, or 15.85 gallons, just to cover the fee! Factor in the cost of lemons, sugar and ice, I think it would be fair to say that her break-even point would be at least 300 glasses, or 75 liters/19.81 gallons!

That is indeed a very valuable lesson in the entrepreneurship that has made the American Dream possible!

And my favorite part of all: the girl’s mother justified the health inspector, saying that “the woman was just doing her job”.

Now where have I heard that before…?! ;)


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You Report, We Fine

August 3rd, 2010

The New York Times reported that police in the Indian capital of New Delhi have turned to Facebook in an attempt to rein in chaotic drivers. People are encouraged to take pictures of traffic violations and upload them to a Facebook group run by the Delhi Traffic Police. The police then process the pictures and issue fines.

The group has over 18,000 fans so far, who have uploaded 3,000 pictures. Based on the pictures, 665 fines have been issued – a conviction rate of over 20%.

To illustrate the Indian traffic problem (on a lighter note), watch this:

Arguably, the idea has proven to be effective, as it addresses a desperate problem that the city’s 5,000 traffic cops can’t handle.

But that doesn’t change the fact that it is Orwellian, with people being encouraged to monitor, record, photograph and report on each other.

There’s an issue of the authenticity of the photos. As Mr Garg said, “drivers can contest the tickets if they think they were wrongly issued”. My question – why should a person even be placed in a position where he/she has to be dragged through a (not-so-efficient) court system in order to prove their innocence by a false accuser?

The potential for abuse is tremendous, particularly in a country like India, where there are thousands of cases of people paying bribes to have their relatives declared dead, in order to seize property – for as little as US$100! The Association of Dead People has thousands of members, struggling for years to prove that they are alive.

In this climate of fear and paranoia we live in, we are moving towards increasingly totalitarian systems of government – and people seem to be readily jumping on the band-wagon! Reminds me of the iWatch program in LA. Or McCarthyism and communist paranoia in the 1950’s. Or the Salem, Massachusetts witch hunt in the 17th century. Or the inquisitions in the Middle Ages.

If a metropolis of 12 million has such a serious traffic problem, which can’t be handled by a handful of traffic cops (5,000), the solution should be to hire and train more police, not to transform citizens into police informants!

It’s a slippery slope once you start going down that road. Better watch out someone doesn’t take a picture of you on the way down! ;)

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Speeding? You’re In Our Sights.

July 31st, 2010

A new speeding campaign in Australia is eerily reminiscent of Big Brother (the Huxley version, not the TV show):

Thanks to ix2a from Sydney for snapping the pic! Here’s another one from a freeway billboard.

I have nothing against campaigns to limit speeding and increase safety on roads. But to do it in such a way is, in my opinion, not only spooky, but also serves to desensitize the public to the fact that we are living in increasingly controlled, regulated and monitored societies… or as I prefer to call it, technological totalitarianism.

They might as well have made the ad like this:


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