Enemy of the People

If there is a theme to the things that we do and say, it lately seems that it would be the endless fight against the increasing restrictions of our society.  Whether it's the latest government crackdown on something that wasn't even a crime a decade ago or another corporate lawsuit against someone whose actions would have seemed completely harmless in another time or place, we cannot seem to shake this perpetual fight we're forced into.  And, like most things, there is good and bad in this fact.

Fighting is good.  It keeps you awake and redefines what it is you stand for.  Done properly, it can also open up a lot of eyes and bring a great number of people into the battle, hopefully on your side.  But becoming a constant victim of what's going on around you isn't at all constructive.  In some ways we seem to always expect things to get worse and when they do we're not surprised.  And with that, we lose our outrage and replace it with resignation.

We need to do everything in our power to avoid falling into that latter category.  That's what we hope to accomplish in these pages - to challenge, to ask questions, to not be intimidated into acquiescence.  The only reason we've survived this long is because our readers have been there to encourage us and to prove that what we say and what we do actually counts for something.  It's important to extend that reassurance all throughout the community - individually and collectively - so that we not only survive but grow stronger.  In this way it will indeed be possible to reverse the tide and build something positive.

We all derive a fair amount of pleasure in listing the latest negative trends in our society.  So let's take a little time to focus on some of the highlights.

The recent actions of the Federal Communications Commission have been quite frightening in their zeal to restrict and punish speech that they disapprove of.  Because of the trauma suffered due to the events of February 1, 2004 (when part of Janet Jackson's breast was momentarily exposed to a nationwide audience), the FCC has made it its mission to become the morality police of the airwaves.  Congress has jumped in on the act, apparently frightened by a few crusaders of decency into thinking that such restrictive views reflect those of the nation.  Their latest idea is to impose fines of $500,000 for each and every utterance of a word they disapprove of.  While few would support the idea of turning the public airwaves into a bastion of gutter speech, what these threats have accomplished is to instill fear and force broadcasters to constantly err on the side of caution.  Translation: no controversy, nothing outside the norm, and a great deal of paranoia.  The result is a whole lot of blandness which is far worse than an occasional display of bad taste.

We can almost laugh at absurdities like the Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act which actually is being considered by the House of Representatives.  It's designed to deal with one of the nation's biggest crises: people submitting false information when registering Internet domain names.  While this in itself wouldn't be enough to get you convicted of a crime (yet), it can be used to significantly enhance penalties if, for example, someone is sued over the content of a web page.  Many whistle-blower and dissident websites would find it impossible to operate if they had to do so while giving out their real identities and locations.  Yet such sites provide a very valuable service to the public.  By adding this intimidation, it suddenly becomes a potential crime to try and remain anonymous.

Equally absurd is a new law passed in Utah that requires Internet service providers to keep track of and provide a way to block access to pornographic websites.  While this may sound attractive to a politician or a media outlet seeking to whip up hysteria, this has always been something that a user could easily implement with varying degrees of success using different types of software.  But now the ISP is being expected to take on this responsibility, somehow keeping track of every website in the world that has material deemed "harmful to minors" and facing felony charges if they don't block access to them on demand.  The mere creation and distribution of such a blacklist by the government is an incredible waste of time and effort at best.  It's as ridiculous an expectation as what we see in many restrictive foreign regimes where the realities of the net simply aren't considered in the face of religious and/or totalitarian zealotry.  Like so many other ill-advised bits of legislation lately, the power and responsibility of the individual is being overlooked in favor of proclamations from governmental agencies who really have no business dictating morality.

None of this even begins to address the evils of the USA PATRIOT Act and its proposed successors, legislation drawn up and passed quickly in the wake of September 11 without debate or analysis of any significance.  We've devoted space in these pages in the past to the risks we all face as a result of this monumentally bad idea.  No doubt we will continue to do so in the future.  And this is certainly not something restricted by our borders.  Recently the "Anti-Terror Law" was finally passed in Britain after much debate.  This new law allows the authorities to detain British citizens as well as foreigners indefinitely and without charge if they are "terrorist suspects," a classification which no doubt will be bent in all sorts of imaginative directions to suit the accusers.  It also becomes the only country in the European Union to suspend the right to a fair trial in such circumstances.  About the only bit of positive news to come out of this is that extensive debates won the right to have this law reviewed and possibly repealed in 2006.  Again, we are reminded of what Ben Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."  In a quote that seems to fit this categorization remarkably well, Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "Those considerations of national security have to come before civil liberties however important they are."

When you look closely at these trends and those that we have been covering over the years, it becomes clear that most of them have nothing to do with September 11, threats of attack, wars and invasions, or anything else that we've lately become obsessed with.  Rather, these incidents have become excuses for pushing policies that have been in the works for years.  The element of fear that is constantly bombarding us is the best thing that could have happened for those who want more control, more surveillance, and a crackdown on dissent.

When all is said and done, it's clear who the real enemy of the people is.  While the mass media, government, and corporate world would like that enemy to be those who challenge the system, we believe they're in for a disappointment.  That designation belongs to those who are hard at work dismantling the freedoms that we have all aspired to in the interests of "security" or because they feel they have lost control.  It's clear that they should lose control because it's obvious that power in their hands is not a good thing at all.

The fact is most people get it.  They have little problem dealing with controversy, differing opinions, or common sense.  They don't need to be talked down to or have their hands held at every step of the way.  Most people understand that the world they live in isn't Disneyland and that an adult society doesn't have to be reduced to a child's level in order to be safe.  But too many of these same people don't step up when others try and restrict what they can say, do, read, access, or even think.  Maybe they assume someone else will do this for them.  Maybe they think they're actually in the minority and ought to stay quiet for the purpose of self-preservation.  Or perhaps they just don't take any of these people seriously and are content to laugh at them from the sidelines.  All of these are precisely the reactions that the control seekers want more than anything.  "All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."  We can't fall into that trap.

What can we do?  It's really simple.  Unity on these issues is all we need.  Wherever you find yourself in today's world, you have a voice and you can reach and influence people on all different levels.  All it takes is the desire to do this and a little persistence.  Educate yourself on the issues and why they matter.  Bring it up at your place or work, in your school, to your parents, friends, or children.  Don't be shrill or offensive.  Put yourself in the position of other people and inject your insight into the equation so that you can effectively communicate why the issues that matter to you should also matter to them.  This is how movements are born.  And that is what we need if we hope to escape what is looming on the horizon.