By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Freedom comes at a high cost in effort and sweat and often in blood and hast to be fought for tooth and nail and that time and time again.
At this very moment in Europe we are on the best way of loosing many freedoms that were hard fought for during World War Two against the Nazis and the first country in line trying to – once again – abolish them and demanding that they be demolished all over the EU, is... and you guessed it right, Germany.
All across the European Union freedom is under attack.
Already a year or two ago the German government instigated the “Bundestrojaner” (Federal Trojan) with which they, legally, can infiltrate anyone's computer and not just discover what an individual (or organization) has on the computer. Nay, they can even alter, destroy, remove or substitute files, folders and programs, and all written into the appropriate laws.
Germany would like to have the entire EU adopt such measures in the same way as it is Germany, and one or two other EU member states, who presses for the introduction of “Vorratsdatenspeicherung”, which means the retaining of all Internet data for individuals and companies via their service providers for several years. And this includes every email, every website visited, every contact made via social networks and every post, etc.
France and Italy have enacted laws against (foreign) Gypsies on their soil and rumor has it, via a number of Russian news agencies, that the EU has been or is in discussions with the government of the Russian Federation (and the Ukraine) to take all of Europe's Gypsies. It would appear that the EU would like to ethnically cleanse its member states of the Romani People.
Now, after the attack by a right-wing extremist in Norway the German government once again in the forefront calls for restrictions to the Internet use and for total surveillance of where people go, what they do, etc.
Italy already tried to, basically, outlaw Bloggers some two years or so ago when it dug up the old postwar law that made it illegal for all but government-approved journalists and newspapers to be reporting and writing news and editorial pieces and, according to the government a Blog was, therefore, an unauthorized newspaper and thus illegal. When governments head into that direction we know they are running scared of the people, in the same way when they try to disarm the citizenry.
Freedom is not free and we must always fight to retain our freedoms but too many have decided that they would like to have more security and as soon as that demand is made freedoms go out of the window.
Demands for more security and “peace of mind” to governments always seem to be a license – or so at least they see it – to put in more and more surveillance and more and more restrictions to freedoms until those freedoms, hard fought for, no longer exist. Then it is too late.
We must demand from the governments not more security but the right to defend ourselves against those that may wish us harm and those that wish to steal from us, and those that wish to destroy our freedoms. But, alas, too many people are not prepared to think and do for themselves. They want their governments to think and do for them. After all, they say, that is what they pay taxes for; to have everything done for them.
Do not sacrifice freedoms for peace of mind and an illusion of security. Fight your own fights and demand the right to defend yourself and your own neighbourhoods. The police always is reactive anyway. We must be proactive and also proactive as far as our freedoms go.
© 2011
