Loss of Privacy

British police intend on keeping track of and gathering personal information suspected radicals and political activists in the UK. The initiative was intended to gather data on radicalization and recruitment into Islamic terrorist groups, but has now spread to other organizations.

Political activists who have no association with terrorism could now find themselves monitored by authorities mandated to discover information about their friends, family, neighbours, political beliefs, use of the internet and even psychological traits.

Police and security agencies have agreed to monitor “agents” who adhere to ideologies potentially involving violence. The documents define targets for the surveillance as people involved in “extreme right/left, Islamist, nationalist, anti-globalisation” groups.

Europol, a EU law enforcement agency, has been asked to produce a list of people involved in either promoting such groups, or in trying to recruit members.

The problem with these measures is that anyone can be identified as someone with ideologies potentially involving violence. It is far too broad a category.

The UK government has also been criticised over Prevent, a programme aimed at stopping Muslims being lured into violent extremism. The initiative was branded a mass surveillance project after it was found it was being used to gather intelligence on innocent people who were not suspected of involvement in terrorism.

Essentially, Prevent received a lot of bad press, as it should have, and the British government is now doing the same thing just under an EU directive.

Under the new, approved, EU scheme, states have acquired a 70-question list on “agents of radicalisation” under their watch. Much of the information presumes a high-degree of intrusive monitoring, obtainable only via covert surveillance techniques, such as phone tapping.

It is assumed, for example, that law enforcement agencies will obtain information about a person’s “feelings” about a group that could be “considered as the enemy”. One section asks for information about “oral comments” made by targets, while others ask about religious knowledge, behaviour, and socio-economic status.

Under “relevant psychological traits”, law enforcement agencies are asked to collate and share information on “psychological disorders, charismatic personality, weak personality, etc”. Another question asks: “Is there a prior relationship between the agents? Schoolmates, friends, relatives, shared time in prison, etc.”

Really? They’re going to ask about your feelings? If they do that, I would be added to the list because my answers would put me on a list of people who want to destroy the government.

This system, like so many others, will be set forth as a means to prevent terrorism and it will be abused. It’s been done in the past and it will continue to be done. British citizens need to continue to point out how these schemes only alienate communities, just as they did with Prevent. It can be stopped and, hopefully, governments will stop trying to implement such ridiculous programs.

These are some photos I’ve collected from last week’s Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.

Taken from the Norman Rockwell painting:

Of course, poking fun at anything needs a yo dawg.

Over on reddit, there was an interesting discussion as to whether folks were okay with making fun of 9/11, since people were making fun of Islam and Mohammed. So, here’s a picture from that discussion.

There are also now talks from Muslims about Everybody Draw the Holocaust Day and Everybody Deny the Holocaust Day.  To each his own.  Free speech is vital to society.  Tacky, distasteful, or intelligent, we all need to protect free speech.

Apparently, he’s been hidden quite often this week and lots of people have been looking for him.

“No one has the right to not be offended.”  -Phillip Pullman

Don’t forget to join the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day on May 12th.

Trey Parker or Matt Stone did an interview over Comedy Central caving in to the pressure and censoring Muhammad.

Trey Parker: So Matt and I were like, “This is great; we have our first episode.” Comedy Central kept saying, “We’re not going to broadcast a Muhammad episode.” And we said, “You totally have the right, it’s your network, but we’re going to make one, and it’s going to be one of the seven you pay for.”

Matt Stone: And then we made it two episodes out of seven. It was life imitating art, because the whole week after the first one aired there was a teaser “Will television executives take a stand for free speech? Or will Comedy Central puss out?” That whole week we were trying to get Comedy Central to show Muhammad. And they pussed out. They did show most of the episode, but they blocked out the specific moment when Muhammad appears. I know people who assumed you decided to run those title cards yourself, as part of the satire: “In this shot, Muhammad hands a football helmet to Family Guy. Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network.”

Here is the Family Guy part, not censored.

Muhammad and His Salmon Helmet – The top video clips of the week are here

At the Mohammed Image Archive, you can view all the “blasphemous” pictures of Mohammed you could possibly want.

While the debate rages, an important point has been overlooked: despite the Islamic prohibition against depicting Mohammed under any circumstances, hundreds of paintings, drawings and other images of Mohammed have been created over the centuries, with nary a word of complaint from the Muslim world. The recent cartoons in Jyllands-Posten are nothing new; it’s just that no other images of Mohammed have ever been so widely publicized.

This page is an archive of numerous depictions of Mohammed, to serve as a reminder that such imagery has been part of Western and Islamic culture since the Middle Ages — and to serve as a resource for those interested in freedom of expression.