Battleangel

Because obviously we couldn’t leave it alone and just smirk as America succumbs to the weight of its own tyrannical and transparent / deceitful “security measures.” So someone thought we could do one better and limit free speech while we’re at it.

[T]hey might begin blocking Internet sites, fingerprinting or iris-scanning airline passengers, and training Muslim preachers to fight radicalism. Ministers from Finland, Germany, Portugal, Slovenia and France met in London on [last] Wednesday with the British home secretary, John Reid, to map out new anti-terrorism measures. Afterward, in a press conference, members of the meeting laid out proposals that signaled a shift for Europe, which in the past has been loath to limit individual freedoms or try to impose one set of values on all citizens.

The European Union members are discussing the possibility of blocking Internet sites that incite people to “commit terrorist activities” or provide information about bomb-making. They may be banned, said Franco Frattini, the vice president of the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU. “There are borders between freedom of expression and incitement of terrorism,” said Frattini, explaining the possibility of blockades.

Plans to shut down Web sites that incite terrorism have already been discussed in the Council of the European Union. How such a plan would be carried out raises a host of questions, including how to define terrorism. “If it is all right to glorify the French resistance and Nelson Mandela, is it all right to glorify the Palestinian cause?” asks Tony Bunyan, the director of Statewatch, which tracks civil liberties in Europe.

It does remind you a bit of the mind-blowing “Holocaust denial” laws that some European nations already have. That is to say, there is a troubling precedence for stifling free speech in Europe. It’s not just about Britain being a bad influence. It is also worth pointing out that hypocritically enough, it is almost always all right to glorify liberation decades after it has succeeded and can no longer be stopped by the powers that be. It is also interesting that both the French resistance and Nelson Mandela, while not publicly opposed, where in fact backstabbed by the United States. That is to say, the U.S. was the best friend, besides Britain, that SA had at the height of Apartheid and the CIA were directly responsible for the incarceration of Mandela. As for France, the U.S. went on to support right-wing collaborators after the war to avoid a possible leftist government, subverting the democratic process in France using funds from the infamous Marshall plan as leverage. The point of course being that we are forgetting a good portion of history if we simply conclude that these parties are, and have always been, accepted and glorified. Not so. That is just a bitter, slightly amnesic hegemon telling us what to think and covering its own dirty business.