[Nettime-bold] Spies on the net

[furtherfield <info@furtherfield.org>]

Spies on the net - thought control- denial - and of course another stupid
war.

I remember reading an article by an x secret serviceman once in the UK press
saying ŒIf you belong to a group or an organisation that has more people in
it than players on a football pitchı then it is possible that you will be
harbouring a spy in your midst. (Something like that)

While phone lines were over heated, and many not working for numerous people
after and during the attack in America on tuesday, the Internet was still
going strong. Information was clearly being transferred without too many
glitches, as we know it was designed to do. The reliability of the net
serves as a two pronged tool. A tool to receive essential information: that
the television networks  (owned by corporate moguls) in the UK and America,
Italy and many other cultures who actively refuse to display its truthıs to
its own people. Yet on the other hand, it also serves as a tool for us to be
observed by people who are not interested in our civil liberties, but are
keen to find out who the voices of decent are. At whatever level.

Even though many people on these lists are just genuinely voicing, declaring
honest conversation and confusion over the events witnessed by the world on
Tuesday 11th. Thus going through the very valid process of sorting all the
confusing issues out. As far as the authorities are concerned, there is much
at stake. And to them it out weighs any civil right issues. When governments
commit mass killings, when they commit a program of ethnic cleansing, drive
hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, when they detain
arbitrarily thousands or tens of thousands of people, when they commit
torture over a period of years or decades... this is not knowledge that they
wish for others to know about. All countries can shamefully admit to this.

When watching the media coverage on American channels via satelite, there
has not been any real sense of questioning on why it happened. The images
have been reshown, over and over again. Reinforcing the pain and tragedy of
the attacks. The old dogs of  war have been awakened in the form of national
security and democratic survival. Old grey haired, right wing, white males
are coming out the woodworks, pontificating on different strategies on how
attacking the enemy. They are the professionals, they know how to kill, they
have been involved in such activities themselves. But where are the people
to be seen on the screen who disagree with such obvious and overused
tactics? 

It is also obvious that the American intelligence services, and its system
have failed to adjust to the new demands of a post Cold War age. Their
ignorance of Islamic cultures around the world is one of the many failures
that has brought forward the situation of violence to Americaıs own soil.
The paranioa of accepting other (alien) cultures on their own terms, is not
a blame that should settle on Americaıs lap alone. All of us, everyone of us
is to blame, everywhere to some degree, at some time for such ignorance. No
one can truthfully stand up and say that they have not been rascist or
ignorant of another culture.

Part of the issue is that denial seems such an intrisic part of Americaıs
psyche. The Movies play such a large part of its history, even when films
are made as a historical reference to events that actually happened. It is
altered, changed so things are much more paletable for the consumer. There
are no references to real situations that its public can rely on. A truly
mediated culture that has been travelling in Hyper - Reality. It seems real
but is not quite real. The UK has a similar issue, but is connected to
Europe, a saving grace. Europe has been going through so many fundemental
changes recently with its own wars and it has been very hard to deny it in
the media. Although the governments did try its best in altering death and
fatality figures, issued to the press during the Balkan wars. And we are
still facing up to such horrible realisms now.

A consumer culture is a mediated culture. Thus only being able to define
cultural existence via information via external sources. Infotainment is
part of the product that produces misinformation, for all information is a
product. Therefor realism is not of interest, yet that is where many truthıs
and hard facts do rest. Death is a truth also, and America unwillingly
shared what so many other cultures exprience everyday at the hands of
despots, civil wars, global dominance and of religious sectarianism.

    ŒIn Pakistan itself, Islamism derived its strength from state patronage
rather than popular support. The ascendency of religious fundementalism is
the legacy of a previous military dictator, Genral Zia-ul-Haq, who received
backing from Washington and London during his 11 years as Dictator.
    During his rule (1977-89), a network of massadrahs (religious boarding
schools), funded by the Saudi regime, were created. The children, who were
later sent to fight as mujahedeen in Afghanistan, were taught to banish all
doubt. The only truth was divine truth. Anyone who rebelled against imam
rebelled against Allah. The madrassahs had only one aim: the production of
deracinated fanatics in the name of bleak Islamic cosmopolitanism. The
primers taught that the Urdu letter jeem stood jihad; tay for tope (cannon),
kaaf for Kalashnikov and khay for khoon (blood).
    The 2,500 Madrassahs produced a crop of 225,000 fanatics ready to kill
and die for their faith when asked to do so by their religious leaders.
Dispatched across the border by the Pakistan Army, they were hurled into
battle against other muslims. The Taliban creed is an ultra-sectarian
strain, inspired by the Wahhabi sect that rules Saudi Arabia. The severity
of the Afghan mullahs has been denounced by Sunni clerics at Al-Azhar in
Cairo and Shi-ite theologians in Qom as a digrace to the prophet.ı Tariq
Ali.

This surge into war is not a very intelligent reaction to the situation. It
may make people feel better presently that something is being done in the
name of the people who died. But history as reams of evidence declaring that
war kills more innocent people than the actual perpetrators. The American
government knows this, yet they are willing to stir up national fear and
hatred to continue such backward thinking motions. It declares their own
racism and sectarian insecurities, and the lake of understanding of other
cultures. This not the right way to go: Bush may like the idea of further
promoting his fatherıs right wing legacy. But that does not mean that the
rest of the world should suffer the consequences.
    
As American forces begin to search for the culprits. There will be innocent
people arrested for the cause. The Birmingham Six and Guilford four, in the
UK were arrested as terrorists and later it was founf out that none of them
did it, all were innocent. The very same thing will happen in America,
information will be invented, becuase the end justifies the means. And the
means is to find a scapegoat as soon as possible. Anyone receiving a
sentence of such severity - indeed, anyone convicted at all - should have
been found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. Letıs hope (all though
history has proved otherwise) all liberties are not thrown into the wind.

Letıs face it, the oneıs who claim the throne to rule over others are not
going to be interested in being questioned for their own actions. For they
are all working for the greater good (yeah right), as we have been told many
times by those who decide to kill, what ever side they choose to be on. To
them, itıs everyone else who is wrong. In times of war, everyone becomes a
victim for the greater cause, ŒGod of Warı, much respected by those who
control our nations and states. Power over others is the real trophy being
thought after here, and not peopleıs lives, as we would love to believe.

Beware everyone, for we are going to experience sweeping control laws,
enforcing non privacy on the net and in our communities. Using the masses
emotional grief as a barometer. Emotional blackmail (a cruel weapon, also
used by religions to gain control over others) will be used to halt creative
freedom and valid information and correspondence between individuals and
organisations. What we get up to online will be controlled.

What is also interesting is the information mentioning that Bin Laden (the
much over-rated terrorist - also unwisely made a figure of hate by American
officials, since has been made an idol for anti-American groups advocating
violence) used pornographic sites to send secret messages to peers and
fellow terrorists. There is already talk about the authorities demanding I.P
addresses and accounts of all the users of these sites, which as you can
imagine is a colossal amount of individuals. So if you have ever joined or
had an account with a sex site and created an account with one. Your name
will end up on one of their computers.

A new war will begin to grow and it will limit our civil liberties - it will
trap our imaginations and possible freedoms more than ever before. Everyone
is a potential threat national security, just by the fact that one possesses
a will and an independent or thinking mind. In times of deadly power games,
the last thing the controlling forces want is too many people questioning
their bloody actions.

The people that rule our lands are letting us all down, as usual. They are
too stuck in their slow attitudinal ways, to realise that the world really
does want them to move on now. PLease Wake UP!

m.garrett

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Creators of the Blue Ribbon Campaign for liberty on the 'Net

PGP 
Encryption for your files and emails.

Electronic Privacy Information Center
Civil Liberties and Privacy information

Cult of the Dead Cow
Home site for Back Oriface.


http://www.furtherfield.org
http://www.dido.uk.net


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