Anti Federalist
07-14-2014, 12:18 AM
It's called "The Compliance Shuffle".
We're queuing meekly in security, clutching a one-way ticket to disaster...
By: Peter Hitchens
12 July 2014
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2690144/PETER-HITCHENS-We-queuing-meekly-security-clutching-one-way-ticket-disaster.html#ixzz37Q9lHUTb
We have become a nation of suspects.
The last wisps of British liberty are being stripped away and, as usual, this is happening with the keen support of millions.
First we have a scandal, entirely without hard evidence so far, which supposedly affects the whole of Parliament.
Scandals of this kind – vague, general and fed by rumour – are a feature of societies on the eve of regime change.
They discredit ancient institutions and make troublemakers look virtuous. The charge of child sex abuse is so horrible that anyone who is accused of it is automatically presumed guilty and shunned by all, so it is more or less unstoppable once it has been launched.
Then there are the comical new ordeals travellers must face if they are foolish enough to want to go anywhere by plane.
At least they would be comical if we were allowed to laugh at them, but even to joke about ‘security’ in the hearing of some grim-jawed official is to risk detention and a flight ban.
There’s an odd thing about this. We are constantly told that our vast, sour-faced and costly ‘security’ services, and various ‘British FBIs’ and ‘British KGBs’ are fully on top of the terror threat, and ceaselessly halting plots.
How is it then that they claim not to know if harmless aunties from Cleethorpes or Worthing are planning to manufacture an airborne bomb with the ingredients of a make-up bag?
Just in case such a person is a jihadi sleeper agent, she, and thousands of other innocents, must be treated as criminal suspects.
Like newly registered convicts, they must stand in humble queues, meek before arbitrary power.
They must remove clothing, allow strangers to peer at their nakedness in scanning machines, permit inspections of their private possessions and answer stupid questions with a straight face.
They must be compelled to accept this treatment without protest or complaint.
In fact, when we enter an airport these days, we enter a prototype totalitarian state, a glimpse of how it will eventually be everywhere if we do not find a way of resisting this horrible change.
This week Parliament will be panicked into passing measures allowing the State to know more than it ought to about our emails. It will not stop there.
It is not true that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.
The State – which last week said it had ‘lost’ crucial records about its involvement in the totalitarian practice of extraordinary rendition – makes horrible mistakes all the time.
If one of these happens to you, you will be whisked into a world of powerless terror.
It was to protect against these things that our forebears fought like tigers against arbitrary power, for the presumption of innocence, for independent juries, and for Habeas Corpus.
It is why they tried to ensure that our police forces never got too big for their boots.
They had seen what happened on the European continent where such safeguards were neglected. They wanted a state that was beneath our feet, not over our heads.
Now, piece by piece, we are losing that. Each piece is so small that most won’t believe it matters, but they slowly pile up into a tremendous threat.
It may be possible to defend our freedom, and even regain it, but not if we allow ourselves to be manipulated by scandal and state-sponsored fear.
We're queuing meekly in security, clutching a one-way ticket to disaster...
By: Peter Hitchens
12 July 2014
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2690144/PETER-HITCHENS-We-queuing-meekly-security-clutching-one-way-ticket-disaster.html#ixzz37Q9lHUTb
We have become a nation of suspects.
The last wisps of British liberty are being stripped away and, as usual, this is happening with the keen support of millions.
First we have a scandal, entirely without hard evidence so far, which supposedly affects the whole of Parliament.
Scandals of this kind – vague, general and fed by rumour – are a feature of societies on the eve of regime change.
They discredit ancient institutions and make troublemakers look virtuous. The charge of child sex abuse is so horrible that anyone who is accused of it is automatically presumed guilty and shunned by all, so it is more or less unstoppable once it has been launched.
Then there are the comical new ordeals travellers must face if they are foolish enough to want to go anywhere by plane.
At least they would be comical if we were allowed to laugh at them, but even to joke about ‘security’ in the hearing of some grim-jawed official is to risk detention and a flight ban.
There’s an odd thing about this. We are constantly told that our vast, sour-faced and costly ‘security’ services, and various ‘British FBIs’ and ‘British KGBs’ are fully on top of the terror threat, and ceaselessly halting plots.
How is it then that they claim not to know if harmless aunties from Cleethorpes or Worthing are planning to manufacture an airborne bomb with the ingredients of a make-up bag?
Just in case such a person is a jihadi sleeper agent, she, and thousands of other innocents, must be treated as criminal suspects.
Like newly registered convicts, they must stand in humble queues, meek before arbitrary power.
They must remove clothing, allow strangers to peer at their nakedness in scanning machines, permit inspections of their private possessions and answer stupid questions with a straight face.
They must be compelled to accept this treatment without protest or complaint.
In fact, when we enter an airport these days, we enter a prototype totalitarian state, a glimpse of how it will eventually be everywhere if we do not find a way of resisting this horrible change.
This week Parliament will be panicked into passing measures allowing the State to know more than it ought to about our emails. It will not stop there.
It is not true that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.
The State – which last week said it had ‘lost’ crucial records about its involvement in the totalitarian practice of extraordinary rendition – makes horrible mistakes all the time.
If one of these happens to you, you will be whisked into a world of powerless terror.
It was to protect against these things that our forebears fought like tigers against arbitrary power, for the presumption of innocence, for independent juries, and for Habeas Corpus.
It is why they tried to ensure that our police forces never got too big for their boots.
They had seen what happened on the European continent where such safeguards were neglected. They wanted a state that was beneath our feet, not over our heads.
Now, piece by piece, we are losing that. Each piece is so small that most won’t believe it matters, but they slowly pile up into a tremendous threat.
It may be possible to defend our freedom, and even regain it, but not if we allow ourselves to be manipulated by scandal and state-sponsored fear.