You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
—Rahm Emanuel
There is another point about the Charlie Hebdo murders that I’m not sure my earlier post made clear, but a look at the response by France—which declared its own version of a War on Terror today—as well as those Europe and America reveals plenty.
Britain’s domestic intelligence chief wants to expand his agency’s snooping capabilities in response to the Paris attacks.
France has deployed nearly 20,000 military and police personnel across the country.
Former US National Security Agency director, General Michael Hayden, has effectively said on television that we need the highly controversial metadata collection programs like the US has if we all wish to continue saying “We are Charlie.” I have to add that the French had its own metadata collection process in place prior to the attacks. Here’s an English translation of the previous article I linked to.
A New York Post editorial recommends that the NYC Police Department re-boots the law enforcement agency’s Muslim-mapping program.
Plus, you can forget about those NSA reforms for a long while.
Like I said on Twitter, the 2001-born War on Terror just received an additional half-century of life.
Which means the Charlie Hebdo attacks have not served as a turning point to understand what motivates people to join Islamic extremist groups, so that these motivating factors can be destroyed.
Instead, the murders have become a leverage point to expand the surveillance state. I’m sure the terrorists are having orgasms over this result.
Given these moves from the terrorist and law enforcement sides of this war—how much freer do you feel today compared to last year?
And do these recent developments mean Charlie Hebdo has effectively become a tool?
Let me know what you think…
song currently stuck in my head: “keep me (d-mailice afro expression)” – cuebur & rona ray
