I haven’t made it shy I love a good conspiracy theory. After the NSA revelations, I promised myself I would scrutinise and question things a little bit more. But having said that, it is important to not go overboard and proclaim you know the truth, when in reality, a conspiracy theory is speculation.
So what do Tony Abbott, a proposed metadata collection scheme and ISIS have in common? Quite a lot when you think about it. Whether or not the link can be drawn between the three or not is another story.
The Government announced in August 2014 it would draft legislation to compel telephone and internet companies to keep metadata under the guise of “national security” – quite a few people questioned why we would need such a scheme and at the time, the security level had remained unchanged.
Then a little over a month later the Australian security level is raised to high amid fears of “lone-wolf” attacks on Australian soil, apparently following advice by ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation). There was no prior knowledge or public threats made against Australia, it is supposedly a precautionary move to raise the terror level.
Not even a week after the terror level was raised, Australian counter-terrorism police have detained 15 suspects from all over Australia on suspicion of performing a “horrible attack” on a random Australian. Apparently a Sydney man by the name of Omarjan Azari planned to kidnap and execute an Australian in a public place.
According to the lawyer for Azari, the evidence was based off of one phone call. What was said in that phone call has not been publicly disclosed or how they even managed to hear the contents of the phone call in the first place. It is a bit of a mystery at the moment in regards to details.
Now I am not saying that this is a fake arrest and Azari is a scapegoat for pushing through an anti-terrorist agenda. For all we know Omarjan planned to carry out the attacks he is facing in a Sydney over, but it all seems a little too timed and coincidental that all of this is happening not long after Abbott announced his metadata scheme and other proposed anti-terrorism additions.
As Benjamin Franklin was profoundly and accurately quoted as saying:
“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Nothing makes the public more accepting of new laws and schemes than fear. Just some food for thought.
