Is PAP government building a 21st-century version of East Germany?

by Brad Bowyer

“The Bill, therefore, recognises that platforms that are closed are not necessarily private. They can be used not only for personal and private communications but also to communicate with hundreds or thousands of strangers at a time.”

So exactly how does a small encrypted closed private discussion group become a platform to communicate with thousands of strangers?

And in addition, how do they know what we are privately saying if it is closed and encrypted?

Will this draconic legislation go hand in hand with the expansion of their spying culture which will lead to the evolution of our People’s Action Party (PAP) Internet Brigade’s and other misguided troublemakers and informants into a Singapore version of East Germany’s Stasi?

After all, they already used an insider “leak” as an excuse to attack the Prime Ministers nephew with his private post.

And for those who don’t remember or know East Germany’s feared Ministry for State Security, popularly known as the Stasi, engineered the citizens of East Germany to betray each other: neighbours reporting on neighbours, schoolchildren informing on classmates, university students passing along information on other students, managers spying on employees and Communist bosses denouncing party members.

Is the PAP government building a 21st-century version of this environment for it to happen?

They are already recruiting for “citizen patrols”, they have the IB networks, they engage in the secrecy and disinformation practices and now they want to codify the opportunity for oppressive actions into law while giving themselves immunity.

But of course, we must trust that they have our best interest at heart, are infallible and have the best of motives and this is all to defend us from … who exactly?

Or is it to defend themselves because their current track record is now becoming so indefensible and the results of their policies, that increasingly appear to be designed more for themselves and the few and not the public at large, will start becoming so visible as to no longer be ignored or explained away?

Dark days and a nasty end are likely ahead unless those with influence and the public at large work together to turn back what I can only now describe as this evil self-serving tide.

Or am I needlessly paranoid as our men in white are so different and trustworthy when compared to every other example of similar governments and actions in thousands of years of mankind’s history that we have nothing to be worried about?

This was first published on Brad Bowyer’s Facebook page and reproduced with permission.