The recent discovery of a tear gas pistol and ammunition on an Israeli police officer at Malta International Airport after a brief holiday and the government’s announcement of beefing up security measures in Paceville due to terror attack threats by al-Qaeda show that the world is under a constant threat of terrorism that continues to change lifestyles in many countries.
While the above two incidents do not seem to be related, one important question that is being asked is: Are our civil liberties and freedoms also under threat with the implementation of unprecedented security measures? It seems that there is not solely the risk of terror attacks on the rise but the world is also, slowly but surely, becoming a global police state. Citizens’ rights are being infringed in the process in the name of security.
The terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon this year was the first bombing in the United States since 2001. The United States and Israel are kindred spirits in that both are experiencing terrorist attacks and ever-increasing threats of extremist violence. In the process these countries are relinquishing freedoms to ensure terror attacks do not occur. This seems to have a cascading effect on all nations.
We all know how tight air travel has been since 9/11. Security is becoming a way of life around the world. The classical example of security at the forefront of daily life is in Israel where laws enforce it. Buildings must have a merkhav mugan – a room to withstand rocket and chemical attacks. Schools teach it. Children as young as 4 learn what to do in case of gas attack. The citizens live it. People know how to recognise suspicious packages and watch for the typical profile of a bomber.
In Israel, many citizens have become numb to the constant threat of violence and have grown accustomed to seeing military personnel armed with rifles. Israel’s national psyche has an inbuilt trait that refuses to be terrorised and indomitable in the face of terror. While Israel can implement security measures more effectively due to its size, homogeneous population and geographical features, not all countries have the ‘luxury’ to do so. For instance the United States has spent approximately $1 trillion since 2001.
The effect of this spending has led to extreme actions. Enforcement agencies have the power to carry out door-to-door searches, sometimes forcing people from homes as they search for suspects. There are other drastic measures, which, in the name of security, have sacrificed freedoms with a constant, absolute obsession of watching, tracking, monitoring and controlling virtually everything you do.
XKeyscore is a National Security Agency (NSA) programme that collects nearly everything that a user does on the Internet, allowing analysts to search with no prior authorization vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals. The NSA agents can use XKeyscore to continually intercept and analyse “an individual’s internet activity
This system develops intelligence from computer networks called Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). It allows nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet, including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata. Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain on- “real-time” interception of an individual’s Internet activity.
So if a person types “the wrong thing” into a search engine, federal agents could literally show up on the doorstep. One might ask: Is this really what America is going to be like from now on?
That may sound extreme, but is the world heading down a similar path? People will soon be afraid of expressing themselves on the Internet out of fear that they will get a visit from armed agents.
This is not what America and the world are supposed to be like. We are supposed to respect privacy, liberty and freedom. Instead, the global reality is that of being transformed into heavily armed police states with a surveillance grid that is a paradise for control freaks.
And it is not just the Internet that we need to be worried about. In the United States there are some more ways that show how “the police state” is expanding:
? Grants to local governments for “FBI Mobile,” a portable biometric data collection system first deployed by the military to create IDs for urban-war-zone residents.
? Covert naked-body scanners for checking out the general public on US streets, a product being developed by Rapiscan Systems.
? A fleet of roving backscatter scanning vans for expansion to all forms of ground travel.
? Military-developed, next-generation taser systems capable of stunning and incapacitating large numbers of protesters.
? Active Denial System (ADS) “Pain Ray”.
? Shockwave Area Denial System, which can taser citizens within 100-metre ranges.
? Laser Blinding Dazzler system, which causes temporary blindness in protestors.
? Mass-deployed sedatives to incapacitate crowds.
? Screaming Microwave system and ear-splitting noise machines for crowd control throughout the US
And this not to mention the micro-chipping of citizens to check on all aspects of their lives (financial, health, status, movements and so on) creating a global modern day ‘electronic slavery’. The threat of terrorism is causing countries to seriously threaten their citizens’ fundamental civil rights and freedoms with unprecedented security measures.
In the light of this, how will the Maltese government respond to international pressure to implement surveillance measures on its citizens? And in turn, how will we as Maltese citizens respond?
Anthony Zarb Dimech