The Breaking Time

Spying on everything (and everyone)

That's not hyperbole. The U.K. will soon require government access to every phone call, text message, e-mail and website visit:

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.

That last paragraph really got me groaning. THe only thing worse than a horrifically intrusive spy system is an easily corruptible horrifically intrusive spy system. This won't even require malfeasance at the highest levels of government; any vengeful or corrupt official can quickly get a citizen's personal information.

Keep in mind that the Daily Telegraph, in British politics, skews right-wing, but this is still pretty damn disturbing. Pair this news with the gag order on the Guardian, where a single judge, trying to prevent news of a company's role in dumping toxic waste from leaking, stopped one of the country's most venerable newspapers from even reporting on parliament, and a troubling trend emerges. 

That path is to a state where countless bureaucrats can call up personal information at any time and pass it on. This can occur if the target is a dissident, if the official has a grudge or if they've simply been bribed. On top of that, the press' ability to report on such activities, or any malfeasance by power, is sharply reduced. In the Guardian case, the side of freedom won. What about next time?

So why does this matter to the rest of us?

Because the U.K. is not China: a highly oligarchical state trying to maintain its grip on power while reaping the benefits of modernization. Despite its fight with terrorism, Britain is facing no existential threats or massive wars. There is a lack of the normal factors that lead a population to call for this kind of draconian surveillance.

This is a democratic country with a vigorous press and a long tradition of civil liberties. If a technocratic police state can evolve there, it can happen anywhere, and will.

The Rundown: First amendment threats, robot killers, and burning bunnies (for fuel)

* FBI arrests man for reporting on police movements at G20 summit Elliot Madison was arrested for reporting on police movement and helping protesters coordinate their actions at the G20 summit. You need to pay attention this, ASAP. Madison was relaying the publicly observed and reported actions of police. If that's illegal, then every journalist in this country, myself included, should be in jail. He also helped to coordinate protesters nonviolently voicing their grievances with political and economic leaders. 

Both of those activities are absolutely essential to a free society, regardless of what political viewpoint is using them. Madison's arrest is in clear violation of the First Amendment to our Constitution and to any meaningful idea of free speech. 

(Thanks to The Grumpy Owl for the links)

* We live in a world where there are actual fleets of robot assassins patrolling the skies. At some point there, we left the present and entered the future.

* CIA invests in social media monitoring firm An agency with a spotty (to put it charitably) history of respecting civil liberties and legal limits invests in a surveillance program to keep an eye on new media. Yeah, that's going to turn out well.

* Bodies of thousands of bunnies used to power Swedish heating plant Yes, you read that right. No, I'm not making this up. The Swedes have to cull thousands of rabbits to prevent overpopulation. So they figured they might as well use the damn things for fuel.

Of course, this does open up the most cinematically villainous power source ever: burning cute, fluffy animals as fuel. The mind boggles.

* A catalog of willful human ignorance Photographs of the contents of the stomachs of albatross chicks. In a wildlife sanctuary. Wrenching stuff.

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And there you have it, ladies and gents. What this points to is clear. Just after tomorrow, a spaceship filled with plucky adventurers will land on our planet's surface. They will see our species, residing in mobile hell-fortresses circled by tireless killer robot drones and rings of dead birds, their stomachs stuffed with plastic. After a suspenseful quest, they will find the bowels of these machines powered by a constant stream of cute, innocent-looking animals; with the occasional dissident tossed into the furnace for good measure.

Such a monstrous race of tyrants, they will conclude, must be stopped. 

Star Wars Non-violent civil disobedience

Activist and author Derrick Jensen (who I don't generally agree with) hits the nail on the head, repeatedly, in this biting and damn funny bit. The problems I have with much of protest culture, in a nutshell.

 

 

The Rundown: Crushing protests, rising seas and locking up Polanski

* Protest as National Security Threat The LRAD sonic weapons system made its debut yesterday against a small group of protesters rallying against the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh. Leave it to John Robb to weave that bit of news together with collapsing government legitimacy, increasing paranoia and the militarization of police. An excellent short piece that serves as a reminder of why Global Guerrillas is still essential reading.

* Rising Seas could lead to 'ghost states' The Guardian article mostly deals with island nations like the Maldives and Tuvalu that are threatened with literal physical extinction by rising sea levels. 

It's worth noting however, that as the idea of the nation-state as the default governing method for a given populace has spread, there are a number of "ghost nations" already on the globe, usually with violent effects. Kurdistan, Western Sahara, Kosovo, Somalia and Palestine all provide perfect examples, as do "ghost nations" that have managed to hack their way into existence during the last century (Israel, East Timor, Vietnam). 

* Johann Hari really, really, really doesn't like the fashion industry Just in case you were wondering. Hari can play far too much of the scold sometimes (see his ranting on the Evils of Quentin Tarantino), and in this case I think he focuses on the industry's narrow top too much. But he's got a definite point.

P.S. - He also loathes the Queen Mother. He's got a point there too. Aristocracy in general is worth despising.

* Roman Polanski raped a child Salon's Kate Harding delivers a feminist tour de force in the wake of the famed director's arrest. She re-asserts the original, brutal facts of the case in stark terms and delivers a judgement that's hard to argue with: Polanski may be a amazing artist, he may, on balance, be a good person, but his crime was vile enough that he should pay, no matter the amount of time that has passed.

I was originally of two minds on this case, and I have to admit that Mary Elizabeth Williams makes some compelling points in her rebuttal to Harding. But the sight of similarly notable directors lining up to defend Polanski has pushed me to side with Harding's argument. Pieces like Harding's are a necessary antidote to the idiotic cries of filmerati that Polanski's arrest represents an attack on free speech. If there were extenuating circumstances or illegalities on the prosecution's side, Polanski has had 31 years to bring them up and press his case.

There's a sickening subtext here I've seen trotted out whenever an artist does something reprehensible: that because someone has made compelling works of art, they are immune from justice.

Bullshit. Making pretty pictures or touching songs doesn't lessen the damage one iota when someone beats their spouse, acts like a psycho, shills for fascists or rapes a child. Polanski's made some of my favorite movies: that doesn't matter. Justice shouldn't care, and Roman Polanski should get the book thrown at him.

Ghost ships: Of looming hulks and future pirates

The lights of the ghost fleet off the coast of Malaysia

About 50 miles from Singapore, the world's largest navy is gathering. It flies no single flag. The fleet's only allegiance is to getting its hulls filled with cargo. 

The ships are commercial, stranded by the economic upheaval of the past year. On skeleton crews, they wait for business to pick back up. And wait.

The Daily Mail has the story:

Here, on a sleepy stretch of shoreline at the far end of Asia, is surely the biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history. Their numbers are equivalent to the entire British and American navies combined; their tonnage is far greater. Container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers - all should be steaming fully laden between China, Britain, Europe and the US, stocking camera shops, PC Worlds and Argos depots ahead of the retail pandemonium of 2009. But their water has been stolen.

They are a powerful and tangible representation of the hurricanes that have been wrought by the global economic crisis; an iron curtain drawn along the coastline of the southern edge of Malaysia's rural Johor state, 50 miles east of Singapore harbour.

 

Map of part of the fleet, with ship names. Full version here.

Well shit, that can't be good. The ships are along a sleepy stretch of Malaysian coast, but they're a stone's throw from the world's busiest port. So far, the fleet is standing still, and seems regarded as a symptom of more dire economic issues than a problem in itself. 

That could change, however. Right now, the skeleton crews seem terrified of piracy. That is one danger, yes, as their ships would make particularly ripe pickings. The fleet is also an environmental disaster waiting to happen, if frustrated crews just abandon the oil tankers and massive cargo ships.

Of course, they could also turn to piracy themselves.

It would take some coordination and a culture shift (most of the crews are from a merchant background, not naturally prone to violence), but desperate times do desperate things. Even a portion of the fleet could seriously impede Singapore's shipping if they were positioned just right. 

That mercantile city-state has a particularly good, well-equipped navy, and it would doubtless have allies, but the sheer numbers would be hard to overcome. Boarding and seizing that many ships would be risky. Sinking them would also be a catastrophic blow to shipping operations, making the nearby waters less navigable. 

This scenario may be unlikely, but it's not impossible. There are a lot of desperate people in that fleet and I'd bet that some of their plans might be turning to a darker cast right now.

On a related note, this is a reminder of how, despite the march of technology, something as old-fashioned as boats hauling cargo on water remains absolutely vital to the world economy. We often think of goods as just arriving in their places by magic, but there's a vastly complex network behind every single item. When those begin to break, something big's about to happen.

Poems for Friday: Metropolitan Nightmare

The Burning City, Ludwig Meidner 1913

Let's end this week on a nice, lurid note, shall we? Let's have an excellent nightmare dreamed up by that prolific apocalypse-crafter Stephen Vincent Benet. 

Yes, I've featured Benet's stuff on here before. Twice, as a matter of fact. But he's one of the quintessential Breaking Time poets and practically birthed the way we envision a modern apocalypse. Given that my mind's been on the socio-political repercussions of climate change, this classic from him seemed appropriate. Keep in mind that he wrote this in 1933.

It rained a lot that spring. You woke in the morning

And saw the sky still clouded, the streets still wet,

But nobody noticed so much, except the taxis

And the people who parade. You don’t, in a city.

The parks got very green. All the trees were green

Far into July and August, heavy with leaf,

Heavy with leaf and the long roots boring and spreading,

But nobody noticed that but the city gardeners

And they don’t talk.

Oh, on Sundays, perhaps you’d notice:

Walking through certain blocks, by the shut, proud houses

With the windows boarded, the people gone away,

You’d suddenly see the queerest small shoots of green

Poking through cracks and crevices in the stone

And a bird-sown flower, red on a balcony,

But then you made jokes about grass growing in the streets

And gags and a musical show called ”Hot and Wet.”

It made a good box for the papers. When the flamingo

Flew into a meeting of the Board of Estimate,

The new mayor acted at once and called the photographers.

When the first green creeper crawled upon Brooklyn Bridge,

They thought it was ornamental. They let it stay.

That was the year the termites came to New York

And they don’t do well in cold climates– but listen, Joe,

They’re only ants, and ants are nothing but insects.

It was funny and yet rather wistful, in a way

(As Heywood Broun pointed out in the World-Telegram)

To think of them looking for wood in a steel city.

It made you feel about life. It was too divine.

There were funny pictures by all the smart, funny artists

And Macy’s ran a terribly clever ad:

“The Widow’s Termite” or something.

There was no

Disturbance. Even the Communists didn’t protest

And say they were Morgan hirelings. It was too hot,

Too hot to protest, too hot to get excited,

An even African heat, lush, fertile and steamy,

That soaked into bone and mind and never once broke.

The warm rain fell in fierce showers and ceased and fell.

Pretty soon you got used to its always being that way.

You got used to the changed rhythm, the altered beat,

To people walking slower, to the whole bright

Fierce pulse of the city slowing, to men in shorts,

To the new sun-helmets from Best’s and the cop’s white uniforms,

And the long noon-rest in the offices, everywhere.

It wasn’t a plan or anything. It just happened.

The fingers tapped slower, the office-boys

Dozed on their benches, the bookkeeper yawned at his desk.

The A.T.&T. was the first to change the shifts

And establish an official siesta-room;

But they were always efficient. Mostly it just

Happened like sleep itself, like a tropic sleep,

Till even the Thirties were deserted at noon

Except for a few tourists and one damp cop.

They ran boats to see the big lilies on the North River

But it was only the tourists who really noticed

The flocks of rose-and-green parrots and parakeets

Nesting in the stone crannies of the Cathedral.

The rest of us had forgotten when they first came.

There wasn’t any real change, it was just a heat spell,

A rain spell, a funny summer, a weather-man’s joke,

In spite of the geraniums three feet high

In the tin-can gardens of Hester and Desbrosses.

New York was New York. It couldn’t turn inside out.

When they got the news from Woods Hole about the Gulf Stream,

The Times ran a adequate story.

But nobody reads those stories but science-cranks.

Until, one day, a somnolent city-editor

Gave a new cub the termite yarn to break his teeth on.

The cub was just down from Vermont, so he took his time.

He was serious about it. He went around.

He read all about termites in the Public Library

And it made him sore when they fired him.

So, one evening,

Talking with an old watchman, beside the first

Raw girders of the new Planetopolis Building

(Ten thousand brine-cooled offices, each with shower)

He saw a dark line creeping across the rubble

And turned a flashlight on it.

“Say, buddy,” he said,

“You’d better look out for those ants. They eat wood, you know,

They’ll have your shack down in no time.”

The watchman spat.

“Oh, they’ve quit eating wood,” he said, in a casual voice,

“I thought everybody knew that.”

–And, reaching down,

He pried from the insect jaws the bright crumb of steel.

World War C

A family escapes their flooded home in Bangladesh

Would a country go to war to halt climate change? Under what circumstances would they be justified?

To use less violent examples, would it be worth using crippling sanctions to stop a nation polluting, regardless of the effect on its populace?

The question emerged as I was listening to Drew Jones' upbeat talk on the possibility of drastically scaling back emissions at Asheville's TEDx conference on Sunday. Jones compared the challenges and dangers posed by climate change to World War II, and urged the audience to become another "Greatest Generation" in the fight against it.

Jokes about the necessity of getting global warming to invade Russia aside, this does illuminate some of the major difficulties in facing the repercussions of climate change. While the analogy makes sense in comparing the global reach of both, one of the problems in getting governments and economies to acknowledge the danger is the fact that it's not war. Panzer divisions rolling across your country or Zeros bombing your Navy are clear, direct dangers. People have the choice to fight or flee. Threatening life in that manner has an amazing way of galvanizing resolve.

Climate change is different. Its effects, despite all the risks, remain subtle for most people; they take effect slowly, over years. There is still much debate over the best way to tackle them and doubters in a way there wouldn't be over a physical invasion. Also, being a future danger in most people's mind, they're less willing to sacrifice more immediate things (convenience, luxury, profit margins) to stop it.

Yet in eras of widespread social strain (and we're in one), a natural disaster can serve as a spark to a much larger conflagration. This has helped cause Dark Ages before, triggering violent chaos.

It's not hard to see, for example, an impoverished, low-lying nation like Bangladesh devastated by climate-change-caused flooding, leading to a mass exodus in a volatile region, with all the attendant conflicts.

My thanks to the ever-inventive Madeline Ashby for the title idea.

Eco-pirates and breaking borders

The international crew of the Sea Shepherd trawler Farley Mowat, pirate flag a'flyin.

With the release of the documentary At the Edge of the World, the activities of the Sea Shepherd eco-pirates are gaining wider media attention. In brief; Sea Shepherd has been around for 30 years, and, with crews composed of members from more than 15 nations, uses  array of re-fitted ships known as "Neptune's Navy" to confront, sink or stop whalers. The tactics vary; including ramming, boarding actions and destroying drift nets.

They've also been known to undertake land-based operations, sabotaging whaling stations and sinking ships in harbor. Their reach, like their membership, is international: they've hit all over the world.

Most recently, they've become known for confronting the Japanese whaling fleets, who, in contravention of international treaties on whaling, hunt and slaughter about 1,100 whales a year for "research purposes." Their opponents have dubbed them "terrorists" (an overused word if ever there was one), but as the Sea Shepherd group goes out of their way to avoid causing deaths, to the point of offering to assist searches for lost whaling ships, the description is ludicrous.

The title of "pirate" however, they proudly claim, as can be seen from the imagery on their flag, or bailing one of their captains out with doubloons.

I first became aware of Sea Shepherd through an excellent New Yorker profile of their founder, ex-Greenpeace activist Paul Watson.

In many ways their very existence reflects our changing times. Ideology increasingly cuts across national borders, as evidenced by Sea Shepherd's polyglot crews and multiple bases. The abundance of cast-off equipment created by industrialization also allows them to carry out their operations on a relatively shoestring budget, while the pirates of old (fighting for money, not ideology, as their Somali descendants still do) had to capture their vessels. They seem to have adroitly managed both the legal and confrontational aspects of their work: Sea Shepherd is a legit non-profit (tax deductible donations and all), and its website even touts special Visa cards with pictures of frolicking marine life.

Of course, they're far from the only subculture to have such international reach, or combine a public face with a more subversive underbelly. But they're a particularly militant and durable manifestation, because unlike most, their confrontations with the authorities has demonstrated how hard it is to shut down an ideology in a globalized world.

More than one national government has condemned them as criminals and set out to stop them; said government will then arrest members or stop certain operations, but Sea Shepherd's been in operation for three decades and show no signs of stopping. 

If the trailer is any indication, At the Edge of the World, which I look forward to seeing, seems to side pretty heavily with Sea Shepherd, but offers a (dramatically scored) glimpse into their operations and the ideals that drive them.

The Rundown: Amazon blockades, Tehran dispatches and fetish's return

Occasionally on The Breaking Time, I'll run into important or interesting items but lack the time to properly comment on them in a longer post. Thus, for your benefit, dear reader, I occasionally do the Rundown, because you should have the same terrible things bouncing around in your head too.

* Amazon natives vs. Oil Companies Earlier this year, Peru gave a bunch of massive resource concessions to some international oil companies. Native tribes in the Amazon were not pleased, and fought back with wooden weapons and blockades in a situation that almost amounted to civil war. Johann Hari has the surprising story of what happened next.

* Tehran Dispatches Salon, as per usual, has had excellent reporting on the ongoing uprising. But these dispatches from an anonymous Iranian writer have exceeded even their usual high standards. By turns funny, tragic and beautiful, they're a must-read.

* New Bacardi ad campaign: Get an ugly girlfriend to make yourself look better Yeah, major botch, ya sexist bastards. This is a good time to remember that there are many, many better rums than Bacardi. Cruzan, Sailor Jerry's, Orinoco, Meyer's and 10Cane all come to mind. Just another reason to drink something else. 

* "The fetish trend in mainstream fashion seems to be back in force" So sayeth Haute Macabre. Maybe there's hope for the future yet.

The CTS cancer map

The abandoned CTS of Asheville factory is the big bull's eye

A group of Asheville activists have released an interesting map showing 70+ cases of cancer or illness within a mile and a half of the former CTS of Asheville site:

Wells in the area have been found to be contaminated with TCE. The map was sent to Xpress by Tate McQueen, a resident of the Mills Gap Road area that’s been affected by the contamination.

A large version of the map was displayed at a recent Buncombe County Board of Commissioners meeting, as McQueen, serving as spokesperson for residents of the area, blasted federal, state and local agencies’ handling of the cleanup.

An Xpress-requested 2008 analysis by the North Carolina Central Cancer Registry covering a 1-mile radius around the site found no increased rate of cancer, but was, by the admission of health officials, “very limited.”