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Doubleplus ungood

Thursday, August 10, 2006

"The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, 'just to keep people frightened'."
- George Orwell, "1984".

So, I'm confused. Yesterday, John Reid gave this slightly scary speech about curbing freedom to help stop terrorists.

And today, we're all banned from taking anything at all onto a plane. (It's only temporary, remember.)

(Update 6:58PM: According to the Department for Transport, the no-hand-luggage restriction could become permanent! Don't you dare, DFT, that's going way, way too far. I'm not sitting on a plane for close to ten hours without music, something to read, games, or even earplugs or sleeping mask. Don't you fucking dare.)

But apparently it's a threat they've been "monitoring for months". So why are all airports affected?

The plot is foiled! Hurrah! So why are all liquids banned?

We already X-ray all hand luggage, walk through metal detectors, and even have our shoes chemically analysed. (Which happened to me when I travelled to Majorca recently.) Why is this suddenly not enough?

Why is a bomb in the hold any safer than a bomb in the cabin?

Who is going to compensate the people paying extra because their hand luggage pushed their checked luggage over the weight limit? (Yes, this is happening.)

George Orwell was only a few years out.

Labels: commentary, news