A Shining City Upon A Hill

by publius

I know Zimbabwe has bigger problems, but I thought I would at least note this without further comment:

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday signed into law the controversial Interception of Communications Bill, which gives his government the authority to eavesdrop on phone and Internet communications and read physical mail.

The legislation has drawn outspoken opposition from the political opposition and civil society organizations as trampling on the civil rights of Zimbabweans. . . . But Communications Minister Christopher Mushowe said Zimbabwe is not unique in the world in passing such legislation, citing electronic eavesdropping programs in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa, among other countries.

[UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald beat me to the punch and has more.]

Comments

[publius]

Just a disclaimer -- my "update" came pretty quick, but we did find and use the same article independently. I found the blurb on this in Communications Daily (Aug 7 - I'm catching up) and then started googling. I eventually found the VOA article citing the communications minister and i posted it. after posting, i thought it was weird it hadn't been blogged about, so i googled again to see if this was old news and there was a link to a kos diary which linked to glenn.

i know it's weird we found the same article but anyway, just want to throw that out there.

[Portia]

Reminds me of Hosni Mubarak back in the day -- in discussing treatment of Egyptian prisoners, he said, "prove that we were right from beginning in using all means, including military tribunals . . . . There is no doubt that the events of September 11 created a new concept of democracy that differs from the concept that Western states
defended before these events, especially in regard to the freedom of the individual."

[cleek]

we're doing all the wrong things; but we're doing them for the right reasons!

such is the way of Jerri Blank.