avs Online

Statewatch reports in their August-October print issue (just got it in the mail) that UK Ministry of Defences actually tested nerve agents on volunteers. The point was that the volunteers actually thought to be in an experiment to find a cure for the common flu. The Observer wrote in September about an ambulance driver that had been ordered to drive a dying Sarin victim to a hospital. The driver was made later to sign something (Official Secrets Act, I guess) and the whole issue has only now been brought to daylight.

The ambulance driver's account makes a gruesome reading. An interesting story, and makes one think what other countries have had their Chemical Alis.

In other news, the same issue of Statewatch reports that the UK government is planning to introduce a counterpart of a no-fly list: individuals that would probably introduce a 'security' or 'immigration' threat would be denied boarding a plane. Now, this is really dangerous. First, a non-specific 'security' risk can easily be extended to mean 'annoying persons', 'protesters', 'journalists with a wrong political slant', and whatever the current authority wants to. Second, screening won't work. I really don't know how anybody expects the real 'security threats' to use their own identities when boarding the plane, or any terrorist cells not using operatives with a clean background history? For immigration, it won't do anything, because if one is caught carrying a fake passport at the airport when boarding, that person will not be allowed to board. And if the fake passport is not detected, the data in the passenger screening system is false anyway.

I really wish people would actually understand that security is built by building open, democratic and free societies and not through control, guns and surveillance.

By the way, I heartily recommend reading Statewatch.