Jan, here is an article that is very relevant to both our countries. Submitted by Tom in the US:

Communist Dictator Mugabe: A Big Fan Of Bush’s Wiretapping Program Should we be concerned?
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, August 13, 2007

The Communist dictatorship of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has sought to justify its draconian new wiretapping law by citing the US and the UK as bedfellow nations that also engage in domestic eavesdropping and surveillance. Should we be concerned, or should we instead just ignore it and talk to our friends about Lindsay Lohan’s rehab?
“Communications Minister Christopher Mushowe said Zimbabwe is not unique in the world in passing such legislation, citing electronic eavesdropping programs in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa, among other countries,” reports VOA news.
Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is widely renowned as one of the most corrupt, inhumane hellholes on earth, a total police state ruled with an iron fist amidst a backdrop of societal meltdown, 85% unemployment rates, life expectancy under 40, and widespread starvation.
Mugabe’s regime was characterized by the infamous land redistribution campaign, which began in 2000, a genocide perpetrated against white farmers that caused a mass exodus and the crippling of the agricultural industry and access to basic commodities.
(Article continues below)

Mugabe himself, whose enforcers are ordered to make dissidents rape their own children at gunpoint, has been in power for no less than 20 years having rigged numerous elections and intimidated recalcitrants by force to vote for him.

Should we be concerned that the tyrannical regime of Zimbabwe, one of the most brutal dictatorships on the planet, cites the U.S. as a benchmark on how to conduct government policy on privacy of telecommunications?
Should we be concerned that the rhetoric they use to justify unchecked spying mirrors almost exactly similar pronouncements by the Bush administration?
Consider this statement from the Zimbabwe Defense Forces director for communications, Colonel Livingstone Chineka.
“The mobile service providers have their own international gateway system, and from a security point of view, this is dangerous to the state because we need to monitor traffic coming in and outside, but at the moment we can not.”
Would that seem out of place if it had been said by Gen. Michael Hayden or George W. Bush?

Mugabe is warmly greeted by former UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

As America and other western countries sink deeper into overt despotism, it should naturally follow that they will more closely resemble totalitarian autocracies that are already in existence.
A London Independent report today provides us with another example – though long denied, “Germany’s Stasi archive has revealed one of the last dark secrets of the former Communist east: the politburo order to shoot to kill anyone attempting to breach the Iron Curtain to freedom,” writes Allan Hall.
“The Stasi directive went: “Do not hesitate with the use of a firearm, including when the border breakouts involve women and children, which the traitors have already frequently taken advantage of.” Dated 1 October 1973, the document is described as “explosive” by Andreas Schulze, a spokesman for the Magdeburg-based archive where it was found.”

Though the report fails to mention it, the UK Metropolitan Police adopted a shoot to kill policy in 2003, a directive that came to the fore in July 2005, when innocent electrician Jean Charles de Menezes was brutally gunned down in London despite having no connection to terrorism, before a cover-up went into high gear to hide the real reasons for his assassination.
The UK has adopted a policy that is borrowed from the Communist Stasi while America is lauded by Communist dictator Mugabe for spying on its own citizens. Should this be a worry or is it safe to slump back on the couch, loosen our belts, crack open a 6-pack and watch America’s Got Talent?
Should we be concerned?

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2007/130807_big_fan.htm