On 3 Nov 2001, at 13:28, Tim May wrote:
What else is expected in a police state? The soldiers say who can travel, and where. Fuck this nation. Fuck it to death and start over.
Tim, you are getting much too cynical! The current events are very much a knee-jerk reaction to threats many can't understand. The National Guardsman who played the boogieman is probably a local good old boy with absolutely no cross cultural experience who translates his fears into hate against any person who appears to be any threat to what he thinks is important. After December 7th 1941 the USA and Canada interned all residents of Japanese descent and confiscated their property. At the time it apparently was a good idea, today it appears very extreme. What is happening today is still very minor and very likely to go away as people realize the stupidity of their current fears. The airport paranoia is nothing new in a global sense, Americans have just not experienced it domestically. Amsterdam airport has many soldier looking fellows with their automatics level and their fingers on the trigger. In Singapore in 1980, the old airport, taking a photo would get you arrested. Much the same in Jakarta until they opened the new airport in the mid-80s. Same in India in the 1980s plus the metal detectors were so sensitive the iron in your blood set them off and everyone was patted down. I have many times experienced being paraded, through a gauntlet of armed guards, on the tarmac beside the plane to identify my baggage before it was loaded on the plane and I was allowed to board. Talking about rude experiences, try arriving at a US west coast airport from southeast Asia with a Thai stamp in your passport and then telling immigration your occupation is a salesman. Off you go for a detailed search where you must rationalize your desire to visit the great nation of the US of A. In 1984 at Dehra Dun airport, Uttar Pradesh India, the airport terminal was a tent. I knew I shouldn't take a photo but attempted anyway. The armed soldiers were there before I could get a shot off and took my camera away - I got it back after the flight as you were not allowed to take photos from the airplane also. I was not to be trusted. As the armed soldiers were relieving me of my camera a business associate managed to take the same shot with a much smaller camera. A copy of this print can be viewed at http://www.fbntech.com/images/id-india.jpg In retrospect this seems pretty funny but at the time they were ready to cart me off to the local police station. If I wasn't a foreign visitor I would have been arrested. In the late 80s I was travelling through Jakarta airport with a stone axe I had purchased in carry-on baggage. It was an Irian Jayan looking piece which I figured I really needed. Airport security removed it from my baggage as they feared I may run amok. They returned the item upon landing in Singapore where it was considered very funny. Bottom line is muuch of what is going on now is a knee-jerk reaction to a threat which many can't understand. Over a short period of time most of the most of the excesses should be corrected as people have time to realize the extreme nature of many of the current restrictions. On a positive note the Anthrax attack through the postal system may bring some very positive changes as people seek to reduce the amount of mail they receive. If you are connected Email is faster and cheaper plus you can't get Anthrax through an Email message. If you use a Microsoft mail client you can still catch lots of shit but it really doesn't hurt you. On a the air travel side the current level of business travel really wasn't justified. Customers are always going to want to meet their vendors face to face but travel for business meetings within one business or government organization can easily be replaced with video conferencing. Actually why can't we change our government to where the assembly of elected respresentatives is virtual rather than physical. When you let them congregate in one place they detach themselves from any obligation to the voters and are open to lobbying efforts and making backroom deals. With today's technology they could be based within an office in their constiuency and linked to an assembly with video conferencing technology. An ideal system would make them available to their constiuents for a portion of the day and linked to an assembly on a video basis for a portion of the day. You could cut the corrupting influences and make the elected representative more responsive to the voters. Virtually Raymond D. Mereniuk Raymond@fbntech.com "The Ultimate Enterprise Security Experts" http://www.fbn.bc.ca/sysecurt.html