A dangerous new law to target the "far-right"

I made a resolution at the beginning of the year to become more dangerous. To that end, I began 2023 with an article outlining why I thought this was not just a necessary step for me but should also be a consideration for many of you fine people too.

Yesterday, was Thursday. I spent most of yesterday under the illusion that it was not Thursday but Tuesday which signals to me, and my skewed mental pathways, that my danger-ability is increasing and ticking along nicely at an accelerating pace. For, what this time miscalculation signals most to me ( if not to you ) is that my movements are becoming, less and less, bound by the appetites of the matrix.

Since the beginning of the year I’ve taken, what many might consider, supremely bonkers decisions in my work and personal life and undertaken at least one outrageous gamble to try and create an authentic gathering of genuine spirits and energy. None of these enterprises have been pain-free or without risk and only the fullness of time will tell if, any or all, were correct or crazy. Yet, so far, I am at peace with the place I now find myself in.

Another recent cutting of a cord was to delete all of my public social media accounts. Twitter, Facebook and Telegram being the three I utilized the most. Historically about 25% of the traffic that came into the West’s Awake entered via a social media link. However, I believe now, more than ever, this is a price worth paying and we’ll get to why in a minute.

So, I am left with Substack, my Scholar Gypsies YouTube channel and my phone. If the YouTube channel gets axed I can live with that too and start loading them here eventhough the video rendering issues on Substack have not yet been resolved to my satisfaction. But it is really my phone ( and yours too ) that I want to talk to you about today and why it is the next device in line for the hangman’s noose.

I won’t pretend that the reason I have taken all of the above steps in my life in 2023 is because of what I am about to outline, but, suffice to say, the less opportunity the government of Ireland has to threaten your work, life and monitor your thoughts, communications and movements the more dangerous you become to them.

While, much commentary and protest has been levied at the newly enacted Hate Speech legislation it is, in many ways, not at all the most deviant piece of legislation coming Ireland’s way in 2023. Indeed, on June 26th a much worse piece of law will come into force that will breath life into the Hate Speech laws. Read the following press release from The Department of Justice and Helen McEntee on gov.ie very, very carefully.

The Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee T.D. has today signed an order to bring into operation provisions of the Communications (Retention of Data) (Amendment) Act 2022 from 26th June 2023.

The Act provides that general and indiscriminate retention of communications traffic and location data is permissible on national security grounds, where approved by a designated judge.

The Act also introduces a system of preservation and production orders to facilitate preservation of, and access to, specified communications data held by service providers for national security purposes and for the investigation of serious crime where permitted by an authorising judge.

A Preservation Order will act as a “quick freeze” requiring service providers to retain any specified data that they hold at a particular point in time for a period.

A Production Order will allow access to specified data held by a service provider for commercial or other reasons, where such access is necessary for national security or law enforcement purposes.

Now, let’s pull out a keyword and a key phrase from the above extract.

“ indiscriminate “ and “ national security “

Very soon, Helen McEntee and the Garda Siochana will be able to grab your phone and internet communications under the pretext of a national security threat. Let’s have a think about that for just a little second shall we.

Is there any group in Ireland that our government believes is a threat to national security?

What group of people have the Irish government and the Garda Commissioner been scare-mongering the public about for all of 2023 so far.

The far-right. Or the mythical far-right as I like to call them. The mythical far-right is basically anyone that disagrees with the government publicly about the pandemic decisions, the vaccination regime, climate, transgenderism, immigration and war.

This act will be the diesel in the engine of the Hate Speech legislation methinks. Remember, in that piece of legislation it states you can be arrested and possibly imprisoned for content that you are in possession of - no matter if you have published it or not. In my opinion, this Communications (Retention of Data) (Amendment) Act 2022 is how the state will seek to entrap people by commandeering their phone and internet data and communications indiscriminately. The beauty of this law is that the subject will never know that the security forces and by extension the state and government are in possession of their data. Until they get arrested, of course, or maybe the subtler course of action will be to threaten them with arrest. Not only will the Garda have access to this data so too will the Revenue Commissioners.

The commenced provisions apply to An Garda Síochána, the Permanent Defence Forces, the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission and the Office of the Revenue Commissioners.

Now, you would imagine that a judge and the judicial system needs to sign off on the issuing of one of these orders as it relates to a direct intervention between the above state entities and Internet service providers and phone service providers without the knowledge of the user and customer of said ISP.

Except…except…….

Access to that data will require prior judicial authorisation, or in urgent circumstances, approval by a senior officer of An Garda Síochána or the Defence Forces.

So, a senior Garda can approve the authorisation instead of a judge. What could possibly go wrong eh….

If you’re an activist I’d advise getting smarter.

Real fast.

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