bethlet.net

Terror!

Yes, terror. Today we, along with the rest of the nation, got a very special brochure in our mailbox: Preparing for Emergencies: What you need to know. i.e. What to do in the case of a terrorist attack.

"Emergencies" include

Fire prevention and safety
Bombs
Chemical, biological or radiological (CBR) incident

There's also a section on "Helping to prevent a terrorist attack." According to this booklet:

Terrorists need...

A place to live: Are you suspicious about any tenants or guests?

To plan: Have you seen anyone pay an unusual amount of attention to security measures at any location?

Money: Individuals may set up bogus bank accounts, copy credit cards, return goods for large cash refunds.

Equipment: If you are a retailer, do you have any cause to be suspicious about anything being bought?

On the page after this, we're told: Do not hesitate to tell the police.

Maybe it's me, but I'm finding it disturbingly easy to draw parallels here between this document and, oh, Stalin's Russia - where denouncing your neighbour to the secret police was not just condoned, but encouraged. I guess this is where using a supermarket loyalty card could come back and bite you in the ass.

The whole thing is about 20 pages long and I must admit to finding it alternately amusing and horrifying. It is informative, though, and if the government is going to continue to scare us all with terror alerts, it's nice to know that they're letting us know what they expect us to do if such a thing does happen.

I'm allowed to order five extra copies. If anyone would like me to get a copy of this for them, let me know!

Edit: Chris informed me that there is already a spoof of this out there.

5 Aug 04 20:06 - Comments (2)

Categories: England