Posted on 8th November 2001

Patriot Bears
By Alan Marston

The USA has carried legislation called the Patriot law, slavishly following
the American formula for success, which is, slavishly follow a formula that
was a success ... until it fails. Something Hollywood latched onto ninety
years ago and the rest of the USA followed ever since. Unfortunately this
formula has permeated the fabric of `western' society so deeply that the NZ
Government has adopted the role of Patriot Cub hanging on the tail of US
Patriot Father Bear.

Now, having newly passed into law PATRIOT, any U.S. attorney or state
attorney general can order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore
surveillance system. This system records all e-mail correspondence and the
addresses of Web pages visited by a specific target. Previously, there were
legal restrictions on Carnivore and other Internet surveillance techniques
(Section 216). Even more troubling, Fox News reported that the FBI plans
to go beyond the authorization of the new bill and change the very
architecture of the Internet. The FBI wants to route all net traffic
through central servers for monitoring. While this will require the
voluntary compliance of the major ISPs, most experts agree that they will
quickly cave into these demands for fear of appearing uncooperative or
unpatriotic.

Law changes currently before NZ Parliament, formerly dubbed the email
snooping law now called the anti-terrorism ammendments to the Crimes Act
(opportunism in politics knows no bounds), are, so I was informed by a
smirking NZ Police lawyer, entirely reliant on the `voluntary cooperation
of ISPs'. Which cooperation he tried unsuccessfully to defend was able to
be freely withheld, at which point the audience to the conversation
laughed, with plenty of justification. Who, realistically, is going to
stand on a fine point of law whilst being bourn down on by half a dozen
burly members of the CIB? Neitsche's ubermann might hold out, but then its
author couldn't.

According to new US Patriot law the current definition of terrorism is
expanded to include biochemical attacks and computer hacking. Some current
computer crimes - such as hacking a U.S. government system or breaking into
and damaging any Internet-connected computer - are also covered (Section
808). While these are no doubt crimes and should be prosecuted, by
classifying them as "terrorist activities," suspects are subject to having
their rights radically curtailed. If convicted, they are subjected to
extremely stiff penalties. Prison terms range between five and 20 years
(Section 814).

The last thing the world needs now is super patriots, unfortunately the
perception is being foistered on us that if your not with the patriot your
against your country's interests. What a tediously flawed argument, which
will not have the slightest effect on its runaway adoption of course.