At Hungarian Spectrum, Eva S. Balogh reports on a protest against a new law subjecting government officials to surveillance but open-ended enough to apply to many more citizens. The surveillance includes listening to telephone conversations, searching homes and reading private correspondence.
Members of a group that calls itself “The Constitution is not a game” got together to teach [interior minister] Sándor Pintér a thing or two. About fifteen of them settled on the pavement and read George Orwell’s 1984 all day long. At the end, when they wanted to send a copy to the minister of interior, the policemen insisted that each of them sign the book before they would agree to take it inside the building.
Surely this was only so the minister could send them individual thank-you notes.
One of the participants, approached by a reporter for Magyar Narancs, refused to talk to him in an area with trees with lots of branches because he was convinced that up in the trees among the branches the authorities place microphones. Maybe yes, maybe no. But the person was wary; Big Brother might be listening in. It says a lot about the atmosphere in Budapest.
I wouldn’t have a problem with protesters reading Orwell outside the Department of Justice building in Washington either. Clearly the department, and probably Attorney General Eric Holder, infringed on the freedom of the press by trying to track down the source of leaks to journalists.
It would be easier to take the outrage among Republicans more seriously if they had been equally upset when the Bush administration did pretty much the same thing.
