Beyond Politics and Political Affiliations

Yeah, I know I am against political posts on RPG blogs, but this post is neither right or left, republican or democrat, conservative or liberal - this is just a wee post about a disturbing trend.

Western society as a whole, and our governments in general, have been up in arms when Arab countries were shutting down cell phone service and access to social media sites during "The Arab Spring". Their whole line was "that is not how democracies would do things".

The recent shutting down of cellular service at certain BART stations in the San Francisco area due to protests at said stations was the same thing. Surprising for such a liberal, forward thinking city. Britain has been talking about controlling social media during future social unrest.

Governments fear social media. Probably for good reason. The thing is, once you give up a right, you rarely get it back.

You would think that with 15 years in law enforcement I would embrace tools that have the potential to make my job easier, but everyone I've spoken to in my profession about this incident is very disturbed by it. Thankfully, there wasn't a repeat of the shutdown during the most recent BART protests. Still, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I'll get back to gaming with my next post. I promise ;)