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I’m always leery when I read that “intelligence” is to be ramped up. I say that as a past member of the Australian intelligence services. What they do is secret. Their goal: to find and neutralise enemies of the state. When that is your task you’re going to find enemies… and find them and find them. You’re never done.
I’ve highlighted parts of that jump out, parts to be worried about. The part in the red box is perhaps the most threatening. “Wrongful messages and slanderous accusations”? Who says? Immediately connecting these slippery terms with “glorifying violence” and “breaking the law”? Shiver!
They’re going to go after “slander and misinformation” especially online. I’ve been wrong this blog since 2009. I’ve often been critical of the government. “Slander”? I’ve often posted stuff, just stuff. Surely there’s some “misinformation” in there?
If they cart me off under the the disturbingly vague measures John Lee’s proposing, can someone make sure I have my meds?
ADDED: The tone of the speech is what I’ve called “Commie speak”, which more polite folks call “Party speak”, the syntax and vocab of good CCP apparatchiks, at once obscure and sinister. Full of threats by unnamed but malign “foreign forces”.