If you’re reading this in Britain, you can become a terrorist in two easy clicks¹:

1. Follow this link to Wikipedia’s article on The Anarchist Cookbook
2. Follow one of the links at the bottom of that article to grab yourself an electronic copy of the famous text

It is apparently a violation of the “Terrorist Act 2000″ to possess a copy of TAC.

• Boy in court on terror charges (The Beeb)

A British teenager who is accused of possessing material for terrorist purposes has appeared in court.

[...]

It is alleged he had a copy of the “Anarchists’ Cookbook”, containing instructions on how to make home-made explosives.

(Hat tip: Donklephant.)

Yep, those books sure are scary. (So, apparently, are multi-sentence paragraphs: the article has none.) “Knowledge is power; power corrupts. Study hard: be evil.” Specifically, the Terrorist Act 2000 makes it an offence to “collect or possess information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism” (though the Act itself probably does so in the passive voice).

Now, it must surely be useful to be well-fed when preparing an act of terrorism. Does the Act make possession of cook-books (of the culinary, rather than explosive, kind) an offence? Similarly: shall we ban chemistry textbooks? I’d think that a basic understanding of chemistry would be very useful to someone who wanted to prepare recipes from TAC and live to tell the tale. “Useful” is an awfully broad term. There’s plenty of potential for abuse there.

And on the flip side of the issue: when so much information is readily available on this here internet, charging people for owning books doesn’t do you much good. So: we have a security measure of dubious real utility and enormous potential for abuse. Quelle fucking surprise.

Back on this side of the pond, we’re (as usual) doing essentially the same thing: trading real liberty for security theatre:

• U.S. wants Canadian airlines to disclose passenger info (CBC.ca)

Here’s what happened: First, the Canadian and American governments collaborate on a Canadian no-fly list, about which I’ve written before. Now, DHS has decided that the Canadian list isn’t sufficient, and wants passenger information for Canadian flights that pass over the United States three days in advance.

[Air Transport Association of Canada policy vice-president Fred] Gaspar told the CBC the proposal seems out of place, since Canada already has its own no-fly list in place — a list that was developed, in fact, after close consultation with the U.S. government.

“The Canadian and U.S. governments have been co-operating quite extensively on the development of secure civil aviation,” Gaspar said Thursday. “Why would you encourage the Canadian government to develop its own no-fly list if you’re now saying, ‘Thank you very much, it’s no value for us’?”

Why indeed? Simply this: because it gives government more power. Power is to government what profit is to industry. The Canadian and American governments are interested in “secure civil aviation” in the same way that Toyota is interested in building cars: as a means to an end.

Essential liberty, temporary security; you know the rest.

¹ Or you can fucking move to a free country.