Control Freaks Want Web Licences To End Bloggers'
Anonymity – Be Very Afraid
18 February 2010By Gerald Warner
The American blogosphere is going increasingly “viral”
about a proposal advanced at the recent meeting of the
Davos Economic Forum by Craig Mundie, chief research
and strategy officer for Microsoft, that an equivalent
of a “driver’s licence” should be introduced for
access to the web. This totalitarian call has been
backed by articles and blogs in Time magazine and the
New York Times.
As bloggers have not been slow to point out, the
system being proposed is very similar to one that the
government of Red China reluctantly abandoned as too
repressive. It was inevitable that, sooner or later,
the usual unholy alliance of government totalitarians
and big business would attempt to end the democratic
free-for-all that is the blogosphere. The United
Nations is showing similar interest in moving to
eliminate free speech.
The recent uprising in the blogosphere that resulted
in the overturning of the Global Warming consensus can
only have focused our rulers’ attention more acutely
on this infuriating challenge to their totalitarian
control. “What will go next?” they must be asking
themselves. Unrestricted immigration? Punitive
taxation? Even the European Union? With the helots
exploiting a loophole in the PC Curtain that has
otherwise been so remorselessly drawn down over
freedom of expression, the internet represents a
dangerously subversive force, fulfilling the role in
the West that was formerly performed by samizdat
publications inside the Soviet Union.
American protesters are most vociferous in defence of
their rights because that is their culture. Some of
them claim that British people are being dangerously
indifferent to the long-term potential for censorship
of the so-called Digital Economy Bill being slithered
through Parliament by Lord Mandelson. The inference
they draw is that, just as Britons supinely submitted
to firearms legislation that has led to a situation
where “only the bad guys have guns”, we may be
sleepwalking into internet slavery.
The technique is familiar. The powers-that-be allow a
scandalous situation to develop whereby no serious
attempt is made to police paedophile, pornographic and
criminal activity on the web. Then the authorities use
the excuse of public concern to overreact and impose
Draconian controls that police ordinary citizens but
are usually circumvented by criminals. It is a
familiar scenario, offline as well as in cyberspace.
A “driver’s licence” for the web would be Christmas
every day of the year for the control freaks. One can
all too easily imagine the criteria applied to licence
applications. (“Name? Delingpole…? You wot! ’Ere, I’ve
got your number, mate – you’re that bloke wot feeds
polar-bear steaks to kids innit. Internet licence? I
should coco! On yer bike, mate, it’s more than my
job’s worth to be seen talking to you…”)
Without the internet, the completely fictitious global
warming “consensus” would still be unchallenged, state
power massively enlarged, $54 trillion of Western
taxpayers’ money flooding into the coffers of carbon
companies and people’s lives made miserable by
totalitarian restrictions imposed to counter a
non-existent threat. I forecast that the right to
anonymity on the internet will become one of the most
fiercely contested issues over the coming decade. Be
very afraid…
©
EsinIslam.Com
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