New Anti-Terror Measures: Be Very Afraid
The European Union is discussing more anti-terror moves. Canada is implementing a new anti-terror law. What they have in common is that they do little or nothing to stop actual terrorists, but will enhance government's ability to track you and spy on you. Feel safer?
The EU is reacting to recent violence in Paris - the Charlie Hedbo attacks and the killings in the aftermath of that horrific act. As well they should. But what would actually stop terrorists? If more spying and tracking were the answer, there wouldn't be a terrorist left in the world. Western powers have been sucking the internet and telephone systems dry for more than a decade. They're likely reading the shopping list clipped to your refrigerator door.
The truth is that we have all the laws we need. Conspiring to commit murder is a serious crime - so is attempting and succeeding in murder. Giving government more power to spy, and reducing free speech would not have discovered or stopped the human garbage who committed the Charlie murders. It would not have stopped the killing of brave Corporal Nathan Cirillo in Ottawa.
Terrorism in increasingly decentralized. While a group like ISIS advocates and evangelizes to create overseas murderers, they are not the ones doing the killing here or in Paris.
The new Canadian law has been put forward by the blockheaded Harper conservatives. It criminalizes certain speech, which experts say will hurt our ability to find the people expressing terrorist views. Without an ability to find these people and intervene to change their direction, we have zero chance of stopping them.
To really stop terrorism in the West, we need to reach out and engage with marginalized communities. Rather than try to predict when some psychopath's head will explode, we need to get there before that head is filled with hate. The West - France in particular - has a history of marginalizing populations who may have arrived less than a century ago. Some populations - like Jews - have been marginalized as outsiders for a millennia.
When a young person is given no outlet of expression they will find one on their own. If that outlet is a job and a place in the community, we all prosper. But if that outlet is a shared whisper with an ISIS recruiter on Skype, we're in trouble.
The EU is reacting to recent violence in Paris - the Charlie Hedbo attacks and the killings in the aftermath of that horrific act. As well they should. But what would actually stop terrorists? If more spying and tracking were the answer, there wouldn't be a terrorist left in the world. Western powers have been sucking the internet and telephone systems dry for more than a decade. They're likely reading the shopping list clipped to your refrigerator door.
The truth is that we have all the laws we need. Conspiring to commit murder is a serious crime - so is attempting and succeeding in murder. Giving government more power to spy, and reducing free speech would not have discovered or stopped the human garbage who committed the Charlie murders. It would not have stopped the killing of brave Corporal Nathan Cirillo in Ottawa.
Terrorism in increasingly decentralized. While a group like ISIS advocates and evangelizes to create overseas murderers, they are not the ones doing the killing here or in Paris.
The new Canadian law has been put forward by the blockheaded Harper conservatives. It criminalizes certain speech, which experts say will hurt our ability to find the people expressing terrorist views. Without an ability to find these people and intervene to change their direction, we have zero chance of stopping them.
To really stop terrorism in the West, we need to reach out and engage with marginalized communities. Rather than try to predict when some psychopath's head will explode, we need to get there before that head is filled with hate. The West - France in particular - has a history of marginalizing populations who may have arrived less than a century ago. Some populations - like Jews - have been marginalized as outsiders for a millennia.
When a young person is given no outlet of expression they will find one on their own. If that outlet is a job and a place in the community, we all prosper. But if that outlet is a shared whisper with an ISIS recruiter on Skype, we're in trouble.
posted by fiduciary at 11:30 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home