Terrorism FUD
2007/06/12 filed under /personal, /random_thoughts
At the train station in Amsterdam, a big advertisement caught my attention. Since I'm not a so-called early adopter, I don't have a phone that can take pictures, so you'll have to do with my description of it, rather than a photo ;-)
The advertisement had an orange background, and in big bold letters it stated "In the Netherlands, more than 200.000 professionals work together to fight terrorism" followed by the text "What can you do?".
My initial thought was to write beneath it: "You can stop the FUD!" But of course I didn't have a big marker with me ...
200.000 professionals? Fighting together against terrorism? We don't have terrorism in this country and please stop trying to convince me that we do.
Sometimes, bad things happen in this country, of course. Floodings, explosions, huge car crashes, anything can happen, but usually, a pointless, expensive report later informs us that the authorities did not work together at all. So now I have to believe everybody is working together? Nope, I don't buy it. Besides that? Who are these professionals and who is paying them? Me? Time to visit the website. (www.nederlandtegenterrorisme.nl)
The 200.000 people include army, police, train personnel, cleaning personnel etc. They all keep their eyes open and bravely fight the terrorists. So, yep, most of them are paid by me, the tax payer.
Now the good thing is that the website offers you to download close to all publications they've made (also, probably paid for by me), except for this poster that got me angry at the train station. But oh well, let's see what we're supposed to do, according to my government. There's even an English PDF document
The document states under the header "what can you do?" that first of all "we must not distrust eachother". Great! I love, but wait, there's more, "but we have to be vigilant". What? We have 200,000 people guarding us, but we have to be vigilant? I'll quote from the brochure:
If we all stay alert, we can reduce the chances of an attack.
- Pay extra attention in places where there are a lot of people, such as metro and train stations, festivals, concerts and shopping centres.
- Check where the emergency exits or escape routes are in every building you enter.
- You might come across websites that incite hatred or violate the law in some other way. Report this at www.meldpuntcybercrime.nl.
- Never leave your belongings unattended.
Ok, fair enough. After that it explains what should be "suspicious" and in most cases the advice given is: call the police
My god, what happened to this country? Why should we spy on eachother? Oh yeah, don't distrust eachother, but do spy...
Probably the best part is that they try to justify the stupid compulsory identification act (search for it ;-)
The Compulsory Identification Act was introduced in part to prevent terrorism. Individuals aged 14 and over are required to carry a passport, driving licence or identity card with them when they are out and about. This makes it much easier to get the personal details of individuals who behave suspiciously.
Even if there was a terrorist. You think he'd carry his/her passport around?
All bullshit! The only thing you can do to stop the godforsaken government is to STOP THE FUD!
