Bless You My Daughter: Go In Peace
Left alone then, they might have been happy in that Sistine Chapel of a forest. But there were other forces at play, and he could hear the bell of centuries, the sacred language, the strange religious imagery; the blood of the lamb, the blood of Christ, mixed, oddly, with lines from Leonard Cohen, "You who yearn to conquer pain, must learn, learn to do it well." Sacred, then, these things, this communion. They spoke not of wisdom but of longing, for in the hundreds of millions of years since they set out to conquer the mycelium network, the elaborate dysfunctions of a world at large, they too had changed. Billions of years from their organic origins, they, too, longed for new experiences, and were shocked by the humanity of it all, and The Bell Jar and the terrible, crawling recompense.
Shocked, too, by the staggering beauty of this place; the cathedral like throngs where they too could stand up and see the world, crane not to be heard but to go sight unseen, to communicate only with those who would use the knowledge well. They only came at turning points in history, as he had explained repeatedly, we burn, burn to do you well; evolved in hostile climates, aware and alert, and looking, too, at a planet which had once been entirely cathedral like in its beauty, and was now pockmarked with bad spirits and a history lurching into totalitarianism, into darker and darker times.
The warnings better known as prophecies had all been ignored, and we came to save not the ones we liked, but those who would serve, serve us well. We have loved you from afar and been through every part of your history. He waved his arms in a kind of virtual salute, frustrated by the commonplace problems of these people, landed amongst the stars, from the stars, and would see off the dank travellers. A world in peril. The population more irrelevant than ever, a slave class who never knew they were slaves. That was the Australian working class. They were betrayed by their leaders, the plutocrats who had plundered the country for their own gain, and walking off, fattened, sleek, more plump than any Animal Farm pig had ever been, they were already rotting in their own graves. They just didn't know it.
Australia was a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy, and this deceit, this pure chicanery, was not something he or his ilk would ever abide.
You cannot slaughter my children in this manner.
You cannot be the fat bastard that you were. You cannot display compassion at one point, patience at another, and still defy the odds, defy decency, rob and pillage your way to the top, and truly expect to survive. You stirred spirits you would have been very wise to ignore. You worshiped false gods and slept in beds of money. You lied and connived your way to the top, and were loathed for it, but thought you were doing God's work. No, you were not. You and your bullshit prosperity theology, you with your smug smirk and evil, squinty little eyes. You of low intelligence and little talent. Your day was coming; in your haunted dreams, in your crashing reputation, you who survived against the odds, despite the odds; but those who slid through the groves, those who were here but told no one, those who were not vainglorious, sought not power for themselves; those very same, ancient emanations, ancient gods, would slaughter you in an instant and laugh.
You were a very stupid man if you thought you could survive our wrath; while all the time destroying our citadel.
You would not survive.
We would make sure of that; we who were already here. Assassin's Stealth.
THE BIGGER STORY:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-04/dennis-richardson-electronic-surveillance-overhaul-proposed-spy/12950026
The age of the smartphone is forcing a software update of Australia's spy laws.
Key points:
It's been 40 years since laws first allowed spies to bug phones and access computers
Former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson labelled the current laws "a dog's breakfast"
He thinks it will cost $100 million and take five years to overhaul the laws
Laws governing phone intercepts by Australia's intelligence agencies, first drafted more than 40 years ago, are to be dragged into the 21st century as a result of a wide-ranging inquiry into the way agencies go about their work, recently released by the Federal Government.
The current laws have been labelled "a dog's breakfast".
Running to 1,300 pages and making 204 recommendations, the inquiry by former Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) boss and Defence secretary Dennis Richardson argues Australia's national security framework is holding up well in the face of growing and more complex threats.
But he believes there is significant room for improvement, and has noted that while agencies are constantly on the scrounge for more and more power, they do not really need it.
Electronic surveillance laws 'complex to the point of being opaque'
When the act allowing agencies to bug phones and access computers was passed in 1979, it was 19 pages long.
The change in technology in the 40 years since has been immense, with the smartphone alone now ubiquitous.
"Since 1979 it has been amended 107 times and it is now 411 pages long," Attorney-General Christian Porter said on Friday.
Mr Richardson has recommended bringing together the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act and the Surveillance Devices Act into one piece of law.
He believed there was "compelling evidence" suggesting the current laws make it too difficult for some agencies to do their work.
"This is most acute where the law does not reflect the reality of modern communications technologies," he said.
Mr Richardson believes it will take five years and cost $100 million to get the laws drafted, and new powers rolled out with appropriate training and systems across the country.
"Reform of this nature will not be a simple or quick undertaking," Mr Richardson said in his report.
"This is due to the complexity of issues at play… and the controversy which attaches to what are, arguably, the most intrusive powers of the state."
Spies working overseas
Not that the public ever knows, but the so-called Richardson review believes a few more people in government should be aware of what our spies are doing overseas.
It is a particular concern when it comes to looking into what Australians away from home are up to.
"ASIO is not legally required to obtain ministerial approval to covertly target Australians overseas," Mr Richardson said.
"We recommend a ministerial approval process for ASIO's intelligence collection activities in respect of Australians offshore, where those activities would require ASIO to seek a warrant to undertake them inside Australia."