For instance, in France, a recently enacted "law facilitates the surveillance of communications allowing the police to obtain communication data from telephone operators, Internet Services Providers, Internet cafes," according to European Digital Rights.

"The text of the law states that Internet Service Providers, Internet cafes, hosting providers and operators must communicate the traffic data, called numbers, IP addresses to specialized services in case of investigations related to suspect terrorist activities. Mobile phone operators and internet cafes will be required to keep records of client connections for one year under its provisions. The law also gives the possibility to use surveillance cameras in public spaces such as train stations, churches and mosques, shops, factories or nuclear plants.... This procedure ignores the magistrates and needs no judge involvement thus creating a sort of administrative police and ignoring all the guarantees related to public freedoms."

Of course, an "al-Qaeda" or likewise Freddy Kruger-like presence-lurking in the shadows, ready to slaughter French citizens, whipped into a fanatical Wahhabi froth by Osama stand-in Ayman al-Zawahri-is required to sidetrack any suggestion such draconian measures endanger civil liberties.

"Al Qaeda has for the first time announced a union with an Algerian insurgent group that has designated France as an enemy, saying they will act together against French and American interests," reports the Associated Press. "Current and former French officials specializing in terrorism said yesterday that an Al Qaeda alliance with the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC, was cause for concern."

Naturally, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, described as an "Atlanticist," in other words, a European neocon, is all over this one like white on rice.

"We take these threats very seriously," he told France-2 television. The threat is "permanent" and requires "absolute vigilance," according to Sarko, even though a close look at the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC, Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat) indicates it may be nothing more than an Algerian intel op cobbled together to profit from smuggling, protection rackets, and money laundering across the borders of Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and Chad.

"A number of observers have voiced strong doubts regarding the GSPC's capacity to carry out large-scale attacks," notes Wikipedia. "They suspect the involvement of Algeria's Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS) in an effort to improve Algeria's international standing (as a credible partner in the 'war against terrorism') and to lure the United States into the region," and, as well, make excuses for building a "permanent" police state in France.

In order to prop up the flagging image of GSPC as a viable terrorist group-the Boston Globe cites evidence the group "has been severely weakened by internal divisions, security crackdowns, and defections in Algeria"-on the fifth anniversary of nine eleven Ayman al-Zawahri announced a "blessed union" between al-Qaeda and GSPC in a video release, a production more than likely straight from a video studio in the basement of the Pentagon.

In the video, al-Zawahiri tells us "Osama bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC ... has joined Al-Qaeda" and all good jihadists "pray to God that they will be a thorn in the side of the American and French crusaders and their allies," that is if they can be dissuaded from their black market dealings. It is not revealed if al-Zawahiri consulted a Ouija board in order to receive his orders, as Osama took a dirt nap some time ago.

Finally, it should be noted that GSPC is a splinter faction of the GIA (Groupe Islamique Armé), or the Armed Islamic Group, the latter formed by "Afghan Arabs" in 1992. As we know, these Arabs were recruited, trained, and funded by the CIA and Pakistan's ISI in the 1980s (of the more than 10,000 Arabs recruited, 2,800 were Algerian), and members of "al-Qaeda" were distilled from this group and used in Bosnia, Chechnya, and are reported to be active in Mauritania, Mali, Chad, and Niger.

It is entirely legitimate, then, to surmise GSPC is yet another intelligence operation. GSPC may be incapable of threatening France, although they seem to be sufficient to rob ordinary French citizens of their civil liberties, but the shadowy and apparently ineffectual group, now supposedly linked up to "al-Qaeda," may prove to be quite a career boost for Nicolas Sarkozy and the Atlanticists-cum-neocons, if nothing else.

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