I tried to go to an internet cafe this morning but I couldn’t go on-line as I was told that I needed to show my passport!  You’re actually meant to register with the internet cafe before you can go on-line, they take your personal information (name address etc) but this is the first time that I’ve actually had someone try to enforce the law. 

So I walked into another nearby net bar and they told me the same thing – you got to have ID.  This time I asked why and whether all of the internet cafes were like this.  The lady behind the counter then told me that until 4pm today the cops are checking out all of the net bars in town but if you come after 4pm it will be okay – no problem. 

You’re meant to be registered so that the authorities can follow your online movements and if track you down if they feel like it!  Here there’s thousands of government employees whose job it is to spy on others online movements – kind of scary when you think about it. 

Fortunately though,  laws are not enforced like the laws back home.  Nobody really cares to much about them, its a relaxed attitude. That is unless you’re unfortunate (or stupid) enough to caught out in one of the many pre-announced clamp-downs.  It’s funny how such crack downs work here.  You hear all about them on the TV news – they show some poor guy being taken away by the cops – to prove to the viewers how ‘successful’ the operation has been. 

I remember seeing something on the TV about the recent 100 day crack-down on pirated DVDs and them showing statistics of how many discs had been seized, how many people had been fined and how many businesses they have shut down. 

Of course DVDs were still easily available.  They were simply moved to shady back rooms or into little cubby-holes hidden away – out of sight, out of mind.