Stand up for something, damn it
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by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News
Feb. 17, 2006
It's often interesting what's hidden inside the news. What's hidden, it sometimes seems, can affect many more people than what's obvious from the headline.
In the sidebar to the right, you'll find an odd article from a British newspaper, reporting on the bizarre mini-trend of suicides among internet-surfers in Japan. Jump with me to the article's fourth paragraph:
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The latest statistics will likely lead to more demands for monitoring of cyberspace, including renewed calls to ban the word "suicide" from search engines. Net service providers already work with the police ... |
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Suicide is a sad thing, and my condolences to the friends and families of the dead, but -- banning words from search engines?
And what does it mean when we're told that "net service providers already work with police"?
The implication is that, at least in Japan, computer users who search for on-line information about suicide are noted by their ISPs, and reported to authorities.
Here in America, it's already known that the Bush administration's illegal wiretaps include giving the National Security Agency (NSA) "access to telecommunications companies' databases, to data-mine Internet logs and phone logs for suspicious patterns, presumably to find new targets for the wiretapping program."
If you're paying attention, you know that the telecom giants -- AT&T (SBC), MCI (Verizon) and Sprint (Nextel) -- allow feds to eavesdrop on phone calls on request, without bothering to ask for a quaint, old-fashioned warrant.
Have you ever searched on-line for answers about al Qaeda? Ever entered an inquiry about "suicide bombers", or Googled for information about terrorism, impeachment, or naked cheerleaders?
You needn't be paranoid, merely curious, to wonder which agencies have been informed, or who's keeping records of your searches. It's not nutty to think that the things you're curious about are your business, not your president's business, not your government's business.
And the issues are bigger, much bigger than just your privacy as you surf the web. Basic civil rights are being wiped away. It's hard to believe, especially if you were raised believing your government believed in freedom, but your civil rights, your freedom, and your privacy are under attack like never before. The concept of America is in peril. You know, liberty and justice for all? And all that rhetoric most Americans take for granted?
The US military is authorized to spy on Americans. Guantanamo isn't just for a few hundred people who will never be charged with any crime -- it's a model for the future. Homeland Security has the right to read your mail, the Pentagon has a plan to disconnect your phone and unplug your computer, and the Bush administration asserts that rights held sacred since centuries before 1776 no longer exist.
If you're in favor of freedom as more than a cliché, now is the time to speak up: Talk to people -- strangers, friends, co-workers, and tell them that freedom, privacy, and civil rights didn't collapse with the World Trade Center.
Write a letter to the editor of your local paper.
Post a rant on your weblog.
Photocopy the Bill of Rights and slip it under parked cars' windshield wipers.
If you just shake your head and sit on your ass and do nothing, don't pretend you're a patriot.
Stand up for something, damn it. If you've ever pledged allegiance to anything that matters, show your allegiance: Stand up and speak out and simply say No.
We the people have to lead our leaders, and make them make freedom an issue that matters -- because if we let them snatch our rights, we'll be living in an Orwell novel.
If we lose the battle for civil rights, freedom, and petty privacy, if we can't stop nosey government and compliant corporations from such petty intrusions as easy eavesdropping and taking notes while looking over our shoulders, what further intrusions will we learn to take for granted?
If we let the bastards get away with what they're trying now, what will they try next? And what will America look like in another ten or twenty years?
© by the authors.
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You're invited to respond:
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This is an archived Unknown News page. For newest material, visit our main page.
This page tagged at Technorati under
FREEDOM
PRIVACY
CIVIL RIGHTS
DETENTION CAMPS
PATRIOTISM
I can't afford therapy, but boy do I need it. So as an affordable alternative, I pound my anger into a weekly column here.
Fair warning: My parents were repressed -- using any bad words would get my mouth washed out with soap, literally. I still remember the sickly flavor of DoveTM. So as an adult, vulgarity helps with the healing. If naughty language offends you, beat the rush and get offended now.
This page is for my own good, not yours, so you may not like it, but I don't care.
About the authors
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Helen and Harry Highwater have published Unknown News since 1997. We're a married couple sharing a byline à la Lennon and McCartney, and "I" can be either of us, or both of us. If you're consumed by curiosity, it's safe to assume the more boisterous and aggressive bits come from Helen, and anything ladylike or demure is probably Harry's work.
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We appreciate the heck out of everyone who helps.
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Internet fuels epidemic of suicides among young Japanese
by David McNeill,
The Independent [London, UK]
Feb. 10, 2006
Young Japanese people are still joining group-suicide pacts in record numbers despite efforts to crack down on the bizarre internet-led phenomenon.
Japanese police said yesterday that a record 91 people had committed suicide together after meeting via the web in 2005, up from 55 people the previous year. The figure has tripled since the police began keeping records in 2003. Most of the victims were in their teens, twenties and thirties and sought each other out via websites that allow the suicidal to swap e-mail addresses, share stories and offer advice on the surest, least painful ways to die.
Many opt for carbon monoxide poisoning in sealed vehicles, often in secluded or scenic areas, like four young men who died while watching the sun rise from a car at the foot of Mount Fuji. The men met for the first time just hours before their death.
The latest statistics will likely lead to more demands for monitoring of cyberspace, including renewed calls to ban the word "suicide" from search engines. Net service providers already work with the police and there are signs the group-suicide phenomenon may have peaked. But Yukio Saito, who runs Japan's largest telephone helpline, cautions against complacency. "People will always find a way to end their lives if they want to. The wider issues must be tackled."
In Japan, 94 people took their own lives every day in 2003, setting a record of 34,427 that broke the previous high of 33,048, in 1999. Since the Asian crash of 1997-8, when the statistics jumped 35 per cent, suicides have claimed more than 220,000 lives, approximately the population of Derby. A suicide manual that lists effective ways of ending it all - including hanging, electrocution and pills - has sold more than a million copies. In true Japanese style it rates these methods in terms of the pain and trouble they cause to others; predictably, jumping in front of a train is given a maximum rating of five.
The dramatic rise in suicides forced the health ministry to bring out a package of proposals at the end of 2002, including a drastic boost in mental healthcare facilities. But Japan still has far fewer psychiatrists than other advanced countries, and family doctors routinely misdiagnose mental illness. A health ministry survey found that more than half of the workers recognised as having committed suicide due to work-related stress between 1999 and 2002 had been working at least 100 hours overtime a month. "This is a suicide epidemic," says Mr Saito. "We are not doing enough to help people who are suffering in silence."
Japan is not unique. South Korea has also experienced a wave of suicide pacts, and Ireland has seen a 45 per cent increase in suicides over the past decade. But, at 24.1 per 100,000 people, Japan has the highest per-capita suicide rate in the developed world.
Nearly 8,000 people in their twenties and thirties killed themselves in 2003, making suicide one of the leading causes of death for young Japanese. Many of these youngsters are drawn from the ranks of hikkikomori, social recluses who have locked themselves in their rooms, sometimes for years on end.
Many are linked to the outside world only through the electronic umbilical cord of their computers, which they use to find like-minded folk. Dozens of young Japanese can be found every day discussing suicide on online chat rooms. A typical message reads: "If you are thinking about killing yourself, please reply." Another says: "I'm in my early twenties and I want to die easily. I can go anywhere in Japan." Fittingly, perhaps, one of the last acts of the suicidal is often to e-mail a friend or relative. Several times in the past two years the police have stumbled on semi- asphyxiated young people just in time, after similar messages were sent.
As originally published
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