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posted by martyb on Sunday September 21 2014, @06:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the ungood++ dept.

The warning can supposedly be found inside the in-flight magazine of Philippine Airlines and has been circulated on Twitter.

Passengers with Philippine Airlines are told that "Despite being under military control, Thailand is very safe for tourists" but are offered five tips to help "blend in".

They include "carry your passport (or a copy) with you at all times", "avoid wearing red t-shirts, which are associated with a group opposed to the military government", and "don't carry George Orwell's dystopian novel '1984'. You don't want to be mistaken for an anti-coup protestor."


[Editor's addition follows]
The Telegraph has a more recent article which lists eight things that can get you arrested in Thailand:

  • Wearing T-shirts that could "promote division"
  • Eating sandwiches in public
  • Reading certain books
  • Posting anything deemed critical of the military online
  • Gatherings of more than five people
  • Raising a "Hunger Games" salute
  • Being labelled "problematic", or a political activist
  • Playing a non-approved computer game

We here at SoylentNews endeavor to promote journalistic independence and freedom. Some may find it easy to laugh at such dystopian rules in a foreign land, but these can be a wake-up call to those in a country which claims greater freedoms. Are these freedoms still in effect? Are they being encroached? Where and in what ways? What can be done about it?

Consider recent efforts to have ISPs provide filters in the UK and for logging of customers' net traffic in the UK and Australia. Consider, too, the reports of the NSA's huge new data processing facility in Utah and the Snowden-leaked documents which identify massive data collection.

"Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty."

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. (Qu’on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j’y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.)" Armand Jean du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu (1585–1642).

Do you find pervasive recording of your physical and on-line travels troublesome? What steps have you taken, if any, to protect yourself? Firewalls? Installed https-everywhere? Used a VPN and/or TOR? Encryption? What would you recommend as best practices to your fellow Soylents and others in the world at large?

[Update: Added indicator of where the original submission ended.]

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @04:29AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 23 2014, @04:29AM (#97030)

    Science is all about whether a conjecture can stand up to scrutiny.
    The systematic elimination of nonsense from the database we call human knowledge seems eminently logical.
    Using only what's left after that seems like a good way to write the the guidebook for being a logical human.

    -- gewg_