Lies, Paper Tigers And Blogs, Oh My!

Did you know that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad has a blog (competition is coming from every angle now)? Well, he does and he’s apparently using it to spread not just information (propoganda?) but also a virus to anyone with an Israeli IP address that visits his blog. One more reason to nuke Iran! There has to be something in the newly ratified Cybercrime treaty that allows for that. If there is, Bush will find it and no doubt use it. At least that way, an attack on Iran would be based on law, more than can be said for our invasion of Iraq.

The only problem is that this story sounds a little too fishy to me. Much like the story the young woman (the daughter of Kuwait’s Ambassador to the US) peddled to Congress about Iraqi soldiers dumping babies out of incubators in the lead up to the Gulf War. That tipped the scales in favor of invading Iraq in 1991, too bad it wasn’t true. Another doozy was the recent story that claimed the Iranian parliament had passed a law requiring religious minorities to wear color-coded clothing? That one turned out to be untrue as well. Ahmadenijad playing cyber-terrorist doesn’t carry quite the same punch as the “incubator babies” or the “religious dress code” PR stunts, but the Bush administration seems to be building the case slowly that Iran is in the hands of a menace. This could just be part of the pile on (don't forget that Iran is responsible for Hezbollah), or it could be true, so hard to know these days. One thing I do know though, this Cybercrime treaty is bad news.

This is another in a long line of transgressions on personal freedoms in this country that we can thank this administration and our GOP Congress for. We know the Bush administration has and will continue to ignore our own constitution and laws when spying, investigation and locking up American citizens, but thanks to this treaty, they can now use other countries laws as a basis for doing so. Apparently, under this treaty if I violate Chinese law, our FBI can investigate me. I’m pretty sure I’ve done that at least a few times already. I guess I should watch my step.

Yes, we should work in concert with other countries to root out cybercrime and help in the prosecution of criminals, but at a time when we are losing personal freedoms at a rapid pace in this country, it’s difficult not to see the dark side of every single bill, law, treaty and policy of our GOP (corporate) controlled (police state) government. I keep wondering when enough will be enough, but there seems to be less outrage with each new infringement on our rights. It’s our job as citizens to question the implications of legislation, treaties and policies being pushed through Congress. If we don’t, who will?