"The storm of terrorism blows strong around us and our enemies lie in wait"

Well the second half of that sentence is certainly true. I havent heard of any terrorists around Egypt lately. Those were the profound words of Egyptian prime Minister Ahmed Nazif in parliament the other day when they decided to extend the Emergency Law for 2 more years.

I dont know which is worse: living under emergency law for two more years, as if the past 27 (million?) were not enough..or having to wait two more years to actually see what god forsaken stipulations actually make it onto the "counter terrorism" law that was supposed to replace emergency law this year. Actually, its a little ridiculous. They promised us a counter terrorism law, are we not good enough for one? Emergency laws are so out of fashion and all the other repressive, totalitarian states will think we're uncool. Lets not even ask the question of what it would take for us to actually operate under a "normal" or say, "constitutional" law. What are we, human or something?

Its interesting the Egyptian parliament, they announce this counter-terrorism bill, and everyone gets all worked up about it, we write press releases, civil society gets all antsy and submits recommendations and panics a little bit, the UN warns of the many violations of counter terrorism laws, and then all of a sudden- bam- emergency law again. Arbitrary detention, arrests without charges or warrants, torture without investigations, lack of privacy, exclusive authority to the military and executive branches of governement GALORE! Two more years of lawlessness just passed by law. Of course its justified, after all, we've had all that unrest and terrorist attacks and we've successfully cracked down on corruption and crime because of the exceptional stipulations of emergency law...erm, ...no wait a minute....that cant be it...