EURO-MEDDLING (15 december 2004)
The European Community has decided that as from next year, the administrators of public roads will have to keep track of all people that pass the road.
They will have
to keep track of each and every person that uses that road. Images must be
preserved for at least twelve months.
When people walk in the street, their conversation must be recorded and preserved.
And when people take a look at a shop window, the name of the shop must be
recorded and kept for at least a year. 
Well, to be honest, the European Community has not exactly decreed that the traffic in streets must be recorded. What they want to have recorded is the traffic in the virtual streets: the Internet.
When I was twenty years old, I visited a part of Brussels. What I saw made a very lively and pleasant impression on me.
Thirty years later, I visited the same area. It had changed beyond recognition. It had become the most depressing part of Brussels. There were still restaurants. But most of them were closed by the time that normal people feel like having dinner. The reason for this was that these restaurants mainly lived on lunch vouchers issued by the European Community.
One day me and my sweetheart had lunch in such a restaurant. At a nearby table, some EC employees were spending their lunch vouchers, within earshot.
They were talking so loud that I couldn't help overhearing a little of their conversation. But I must say: seldom did I hear such dribble. It seemed to make these people so happy that they could make the rules and interfere in other people's lives.
I'm sure if we don't stop these people they'll manage to smother every bit of freedom and initiative we've left.
Don't tell me later I didn't warn you!
