An interesting little film. It has some very valid points to be made.

I would like to make one additional one. There are people who want to kill us. And as one Holocaust survivor said, paraphrased, when somebody says they want to kill you…believe them. So I'm not against taking steps to prevent getting killed. I don't think anyone I know would disagree with this.

But as I've mentioned before, a lot of the laws and regulations that are being enacted will do nothing to keep us safe. They are instead grandstanding by politicians who want to make you feel better about what they're doing–much as in the film they're "dressing up" all of this surveillance as a positive thing. And yes, in the wrong hands, they can be used in damaging ways.

And here's the thing: I don't believe anyone in government right now is competent enough to be actively pushing us towards a police state. A true sign that you don't have a handle on things is to just throw everything into a state of lockdown. I think we'll get to a police state by the sheer stupidity of the government, if nothing else. And I, for the most part, agree with the Bullshit episode which talked about the inability of government to really effectively use all the data that they get in thus far.

Really, the most disturbing portion of this is the surveillance of e-mails and communications. It's true–we all do stuff online at some point, and to varying degrees, that we wouldn't necessarily want people knowing about. I'm reminded of a bit in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (and I'll paraphrase, since the idea of flipping back through that tome to find the actual line is daunting) where it's explained that governments control criminals and so if they want to control everyone they simply make it impossible for you to exist without criminalizing yourself. Anything in that sound familiar?

Thanks to ScottC for sending over the link. Direct link here for the feedreaders.

If this original story is accurate, then this is genius.

Found via Reason's Hit and Run.