Protection, or Military State?

Giving up freedom for 'freedom' from terror;  do we want to become a military state?

I cannot help but notice that the 'political' response to the recent French terrorist attacks places emphasis on physical defence;   soldiers police and guns. I can discern very little heartfelt or thorough thought about freedom, or about the tracking and monitoring of known terrorists, which seem to me effective ways of preventing terrorism.

For example, I watched an interview with General Denis Favier, Directeur Generale de la Gendarmerie Nationale and the gist of it was 'our police were very well co-ordinated' - he obviously couldn't say very much, for security reasons.    It was like listening to someone evaluating his performance in a video game.  But one thing I read from behind the public performance,  is just how seriously the police take this, and the sneaking feeling that they can't manage alone.

Francois Hollande's ghastly mediocre mutterings in the aftermath seemed to be largely about the same subject, blank praise for the police, and as for the rest, it was as if he were reading out the minutes of a boring meeting.  As far as I'm
concerned, hearts and minds were not touched by our state representatives.  They are touched by people making strong, individual moral stands, posted on social media sites.  Unless of course these statements manufactured by politicians with atavars, or murky manipulative characters).


In France we will soon be quite used to Muslim and Jewish schools behind metal fences guarded by armed soldiers or police.  The La Defense shopping mall near where JC works is today patrolled by armed soldiers. School-guns, shopping-soldiers, normal associations?  It will become a way of life, and we will feel
grateful for the visible 'protection'.  Perhaps we will not realise we are marching happily and willingly into a police state, it's appearance and mechanism at least, supposedly there to guard and represent our life and freedom, without a thought for who is, or might one day be behind a move to 'militarise', or take advantage of the structure being in place.   In the meantime, with all this army drama, are we as individuals, going to neglect to think about freedom, and talk about it and strengthen it in our hearts and strengthen our loving and compassionate relationships and do the things which really generate peace?

Surveillance of the Kouachi brothers behind the Charlie Hebdo massacre had been called off only six months before the attack because they were deemed low risk, French media reported on Saturday. WHAT WHAT WHAT???  Please read this again!

I can understand that the people charged with national defence against terrorism, from the top secret 'experts' down to the every day policers of our state,  cannot direct their attention to everyone, but please, known terrorists?

What happens with known terrorists, or any other significant criminal suspect, is that the police go cap in hand to the Powers to ask for information.  The Powers nowadays are those with Information such as Google, or telephone companies.  The deal is, these Powers sell us something which we can't live without in normal society (phones, social media networking) and we supply them freely with all the information they need to get complete pictures about each of us and all of us, for them to sell it and become very rich and powerful;  and in turn take over other companies and become an unelected and unchecked world superpower.  The people who make the most important decisions about our national security are in large part information company executives, and their staff, perhaps even a terrorist who is on the staff who knows? 

But anyway, for the moment, these companies are willing or obliged to give information to the 'defenders of the nation' on demand.  However, technically, the police cannot ask these Powers to release information on just anyone because after all, we do believe very strongly in freedom of expression and movement, confidentiality, private life...um, do we?  We're giving it away hand over fist, without a thought about what we are giving away, and who we might be giving it to!

It doesn't make any sense to me to not use this power of information to track terrorists, and to pay instead for armed guards for...everyone?    And it doesn't make any sense to me to parade people with guns in front of our schools.  There were two policemen with guns outside Charlie Hebdo and they got shot.  The police I've seen on the news outside a Jewish school (24 hour guard for the foreseeable future) have no head protection, they can be killed just like the rest of us.

Here's an example of what I'm trying to get at;  if we took protecting ourselves and our freedom seriously,  we would be tracking not only extremist hate-think indoctrinators, but getting to know the people vulnerable to their attacks, and doing all we could to protect them from indoctrination, and finding out whether they have been recruited, and tracking them if so.   And when such a vulnerable person is in prison, (Cherif Karouchi, Amedy Coulibaly) would we allow him access to a free residential radicalisation training course with Djamel Beghal or Farid Benyettou?  Well would we?  Can we not control radical terrorists in prison, in France?  And then not track the newly radicalised when they are released?   If our national security people think radicalisation wears off in time they need to think again.   Are we directing our attention in the right place?

(Perhaps one of Google's machines is tracking key words in this piece and if it's part of a general trend, will flog it off to someone who wants to know...)