NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
Dear readers:
The Siracusa Principles state that restrictions on human rights under the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) must meet standards of legality, evidence-based necessity, proportionality, and gradualism.
Are our rights being violated unnecessarily in the context of stickers on the floor at the supermarket telling you exactly where to stand when lining up at the cash register. The “one-way aisles” telling you which way to walk as you do your shopping. The infrared thermometer guns pointed suggestively at your head before you enter a public building, as if such a device could actually detect a fever within a fraction of a second of “scanning.” The following article, written by investigative journalist, James Corbett, might bring light and ideas to these unanswered questions. – Marvin Ramírez.
by James Corbett
August 15, 2020 – You know about “security theatre,” right? That’s the kind of take-off-your-shoes-and-belt nonsense that was instituted at the airport post-9/11 to give passengers the feeling that the government was protecting them from those dastardly Al-CIA-da terrorists.
Of course, these measures do nothing to actually prevent terrorism. Even the MSM mouthpiece media was forced to admit that the TSA never caught a single terrorist with such practices.
But that’s not the point. These procedures are only there to give the impression that agencies like the TSA are actually keeping the public safe.
Well, guess what? As we transition from the post-9/11 “homeland security” paradigm to the post-Covid “biosecurity” paradigm, there is now an equivalent to the security theatre phenomenon taking shape: biosecurity theatre.
I know you’ve noticed it already. The stickers on the floor at the supermarket telling you exactly where to stand when lining up at the cash register. The “one-way aisles” telling you which way to walk as you do your shopping. The infrared thermometer guns pointed suggestively at your head before you enter a public building, as if such a device could actually detect a fever within a fraction of a second of “scanning.”
Of course these gadgets and procedures are not meant to stop the spread of any infectious pathogen. They are merely there to make the public feel better.
Even The Bezos Post is aware of how ridiculous this all is. As Anna Fifield recently noted in a report on how Beijing is coping with the “new normal,” the biosecurity precautions that are being put in place in China’s capital are demonstrably useless.
“Security guards with temperature guns man the gates at supermarkets and residential compounds, pointing them at the wrists of every person who wants to enter. This is largely a formality, as the reading often does not reflect reality. This reporter has recorded temperatures in the low 80s on several occasions, yet was alive enough to walk through the gate.”
Yes, that’s the essence of biosecurity theatre: it’s “largely a formality” and “does not reflect reality.”
But as ridiculous as all of this biosecurity theatre is, it just got 1000x more ridiculous.
Effective August 1st, the state of Wisconsin is requiring all state employees to wear face masks in state facilities. But the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is going one step further: the department is requiring its employees to wear face masks during teleconferences . . . even when they’re at home alone.
That’s right, people who are sitting at a computer by themselves with no conceivable possibility of spreading any sort of pathogen are being required to mask up. And why? Because, as Natural Resources Secretary Preston Cole reminded DNR workers in a July 31st email, they are “set[ting] the safety example which shows you as a DNR public service employee care about the safety and health of others.”
They’re not even pretending this is about health or safety at this point. The point of this exercise is (in their own words) to shape public expectations of “acceptable” behaviour in the new biosecurity paradigm.
Talk about theatre.
But there’s a deeper level to all of this. The post-9/11 security theatre, for instance, was not just about justifying the budget of bloated agencies like the TSA. It was also there to reinforce the narrative.
“Why are these jackbooted thugs at the airports frisking octogenerians in wheelchairs, making people empty their colostomy bags and generally treating passengers like inmates during a prison lockdown? It must be because the terror threat is real! Thank goodness for those kind-hearted TSA agents keeping us safe from the big bad terror bogeymen.”
Similarly, the Covid World Order biosecurity theatre is there to reinforce the narrative of the Big Bad Virus.
“So why is everyone suddenly forced to wear masks (even in Zoom meetings from home)? Why are we all standing on social distancing stickers in line at the supermarket checkout? Why are students’ desks being encased in perspex? Why are security guards with infrared thermometers checking everybody entering office buildings and other crowded spaces? It must be because the corona threat is real! Thank goodness for those valiant government employees who are working to keep us safe from the big bad viral bogeyman.”
But in fact it’s even worse than that.
In the terror paradigm, at least the “terrorists” were identifiable bad men with evil intentions. According to the terror narrative, these were people who consciously set out to cause death and destruction. Security agencies can and do treat everyone as a potential terrorist because they can claim ignorance of people’s intentions until a thorough examination is done. But in our own mind, we know that we are not terrorists and that if we were to be accused of terrorism it would be a false charge.
But in the biosecurity paradigm people are being accused of spreading a viral pathogen. According to the health authorities, there’s no way to know if you are an “asymptomatic carrier” unless you are tested (multiple times, even). So maybe you are a biosecurity threat. If an agent of the state performs an examination and deems you to be a carrier of the deadly SARS-Cov-2 (or whatever Gates and his minions are dreaming up for “Pandemic II”), how could you refute it? In this case, your intentions don’t matter. You can protest your innocence all you want, but the tests don’t lie.
Of course, the tests do lie. But again, that’s the point. It’s like another feature of the old fashioned security theatre: the metal detectors that operators can trigger to go off at will, or the drug sniffing dogs that can be signaled to give a false alert. When the state wants to detain someone in the future, claiming that their target “tested positive” for *insert scary-sounding virus here* will be all the justification needed for most normies to go along with their incarceration.
In the end, biosecurity theatre is not as harmless as its name might imply. It is part of the societal conditioning that we are being subjected to. The social engineers hope this conditioning will train us to:
- a) believe in the seriousness of the biosecurity threat presented by SARS-Cov-2 (or whatever virus they tell us to fear next);
- b) comply with agents of the state and other authority figures in whatever tests and screenings that are required to access any given space; and
- c) create the uncertainty in us that anyone—even ourselves—could be a grave threat to public safety without even knowing it.
And now, as we are seeing in Melbourne, in Auckland, and in other places around the world where the public have seemingly lost their mind over the “existential threat” posed by this “deadly virus,” there are all too many who are willing to move from biosecurity theatre to biosecurity totalitarianism.
The public is being softened. And the worst is yet to come.
