Rant: Bin Laden vs the Safety Elephant
10 Sep 2005 by Paul Davies
"...and whosoever was not found written into the book of life was cast into the lake of fire..." — Revelations xx, 15Who's more dangerous: Bin Laden or the Safety Elephant?
Not difficult, is it? One is a scrawny little fellow with an impressive beard who may or may not be dead, whose only contact with the world is through a few scratchy videos broadcast now and then over al-Jazeera, and whose influence on our every day lives is staggeringly minimal. The other is a jug-eared beast who wants to know everything about everyone and employ half the population in the surveillance industry as part of a campaign to instil fear into every man woman and child in Britain.
Once it became clear that his ludicrously expensive and bureaucratic plans would do precisely sod all to combat terrorism, yob culture or even the existence of Robert Kilroy-Silk, The Elephant began to have some trouble convincing the good people of Britain that plugging them all into a database was a good idea.
But just as sense looked like it might prevail, Mr Clarke came up with a better plan: he went directly to the home of expensive wastes of time – the EU.
In a speech trumpeted out the other day, the Home Secretary outlined the need, nay the necessity, to convert our organic matter into a handy plastic card.
Just in case you were unaware:
"we (presumably in the royal sense) argue that internationally consistent and coherent biometric data should be an automatic part of our visas, passports and identity cards where we have them – and would even suggest driving licences as well"But even this isn't enough. Terrorists are people; that means they know how to use mobile phones and the Internet and stuff:
"criminals and terrorists use modern technology: the Internet and mobile communications to plan and carry out their activities. We can only effectively contest them if we know what they are communicating. Without that knowledge we are fighting them with both hands tied behind our backs."Translation: trace every phone call, read every email, open every letter, interrupt every carrier pigeon, shoot all telepathists in the back of the head...
"Nonsense," you may say, "it's only money-hunting Royal Mail staff who can go through our post." Think again; hard as it may be to believe, and against all sorts of expert advice, the crazy fool is serious.
And finally, to prove that he is indeed a brain-dead freak, Mr Clarke reassured his audience that these were "practical measures". Sleep easy, people.
