When you have insanely overly funded law enforcement geared for massive threats that don't exist, then they are most certainly going to use all that manpower and equipment go after easy targets that cannot defend themselves, to justify their salaries somehow.
They know it's a hassle to go after people who are wealthy and can afford their own lawyers so they avoid it unless there is something political to be gained.
This theme repeats itself at every level, local, state and federal.
This is why when I see things like a national database for facial recognition it's pretty easy to accurately predict for every one "terrorist" caught each decade, thousands of people will experience life-traumatizing hassle that they didn't deserve.
Just look at the TSA and their VIPR "squad" - if they are not defunded soon, they will become the nightmare of the USA, never catching one "terrorist" but themselves terrorizing millions of citizens for no purpose but to "keep us in our place".
I think we will really get a demonstration of this at the upcoming RNC and DNC conventions (ironically funded by taxpayers).
The terrorist in the USA won a long time ago. The unfortunate lives lost on September 11th will never be forgotten and the wars fought over them won't either.
Sadly, the freedoms lost because of these events set back the Unites States many many decades. I remember growing up a proud US citizen who was happy to be patriotic because my country stood for the right things for the right reasons.
Now, I'm ashamed. My country took a head first dive into the quick sand of ignorance and fear even though there were countless, larger than life, signs warning us it was right there.
To my fellow citizen, and the rest of the word, I'm sorry America is no longer the beacon of freedom it once was.
The actions of the US government were not actually a response to the 'terrorism'. Those incidents were merely their excuses and cover stories as they proceeded to do exactly what they intended and desired previously (witness the Patriot Act, appearing in it's full 8,000 page glory 2 days after the WTC was destroyed).
"When I was chairman in '94 I introduced a major antiterrorism bill--back then,...I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up [the Patriot act] was my bill." - Joe Biden
When did you grow up? Was it before WWII or J. Edgar Hoover's tenure as FBI director? Because I wouldn't really describe either of those periods in American history as "beacons of freedom".
Perhaps we can go back to roots of the word "terrorism", and remember it was about the government doing random raids and arbitrary, abusive punishments on civilians, and thus spreading terror to keep the people low profile.
I don't think terrorists actually win. What they got on 9/11 is more intervention in the middle east. The fact that it terrify the US government into terrorizing their own citizen is just incidental.
The goal of terrorism is to cause terror. Was the US sufficiently terrorized by 9/11? It'd be near-impossible to argue that we weren't. Not only did we shed quite a few civil liberties, and subject our own citizens to a wide range of inconveniences and violations, but we also spent trillions of dollars in an ongoing "War on Terror" that seems to have no end and no realistic, tangible goals. (As with the "War on Drugs," it reifies an intangible concept, and then attempts to fight that concept as if it were tangible).
Getting the US out of the Middle East is a long-term goal of Al Qaeda and similar organizations. But the short-term goal, i.e., how they plan to get us out of the Middle East, is by causing our society to collapse -- financially and socially. To paraphrase one of OBL's treatises, Al Qaeda wants to "bleed" us to death. Terror is their chief tactic in pursuit of that strategy.
OBL is dead, and depending on whom you ask, Al Qaeda is either spent or significantly weakened. But that's sort of beside the point. Those guys never really expected that 9/11 would cause us to withdraw immediately from the Middle East. In fact, their entire plan was to draw us deeper in, where we could waste blood and treasure and engender further ill will in the region. And the fact that we whipped up a security frenzy in our own country (PATRIOT act, airport security theater, paranoia, etc.)? That's either icing on the cake, or part of the cake itself, but it's certainly a big win in Al Qaeda's column.
Now, if you take the long view, you could argue that there's still time for us to correct our course. The terror and repurcussions of our reaction to 9/11 can still be undone. We recovered from McCarthyism. We recovered from the Alien & Sedition Acts. Time and again, our country has temporarily threatened its own principles or abandoned rationality, and then come back to its senses in the long run. It's entirely possible that the post-9/11 security frenzy ends up being another historical footnote.
On the other side, the United State government benefits, as they are seen as more important than ever and they can justify further tax increase In other words, they benefit from a situation they did not create.
Of course, it was not rational in the long run. But for the careers of certain individuals, it is a good thing. The harm may be so dispersed that they barely felt it or they are shielded from it altogether. Furthermore, they are fueled by our irrationality of perceiving rare, media-worthy like a terrorist attack as more important than many common death scenarios and the more common(and arguably more important) horror.
Keep in mind that organizations will either choose to expand, or disappears. If the US government choose the rational way for society and enlightened self-interest, it would have make itself disappear by unemploying themselves in the process. Of course, the government choose to makes job for the insider instead.
In some sense, this is what the party of the US government wanted and what terrorists desire. But if they aren't so wrapped up in the government or being a terrorist, they might have a different perspective.
It's like being a luddite at the dawn of the industrial revolution. We saw that we are losing our jobs, but we don't see that eventually our quality of life is going to increase. Now that we don't have to make clothes, we can enjoy the finer thing in life.
I agree that the chance they thought this (US Govt. terrorizing their own citizens) is what would happen is slim. However, their goal of wanting to hurt the US population / Government in a significant way was far more successful than they could ever imagine.
The additional intervention in the middle east was a given either way so I don't think that can be looked at as a loss for them.
I would think they wanted more intervention in the middle east. Why? To drum up more support for their cause and to have an easy villan. I would say their attacks were fairly successful.
Big +1. Who could have predicted that American fascism would be an unholy marriage of the nanny state and the police state? "Don't worry, we'll keep you safe. Now close that lemonade stand or we'll break your teeth."
Eh? That was the most obvious evolution. As Gerald Ford said "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have." He wasn't talking about physical things.
I don't know what VIPR squad is doing, but it seem pretty much as European customs officers under Schengen region.
Since there are no border customs checks any more in Schengen area, the customs officers have authority to stop any vehicle and to strip it bare, while searching for a cause for an investigation.
In Slovenia as of this year, customs officers are allowed on private land to perform an inspection of fuel for vehicles (heating oil is basically diesel with lower tax and often used in heavy and farm machinery).
The thing is in "the states" our very constitution is supposed to protect us from warrantless searches.
What VIPR is doing now is grabbing people as they LEAVE trains and putting them through mock-airport security (yes as they leave, not before).
They also stop people on the road and question them "where are you coming from, where are you going". I am not sure about the various countries in Europe but in the USA, until this decade, police were supposed to have "probable cause" to stop and question you.
This is why it's freaking people out. And I am pretty sure it's meant to. Holiday travel is only a month away and the groping starts up then, so the media will finally pay attention but it never goes anywhere near getting the TSA defunded.
http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/vipr_cities.shtm (TSA Supports VIPR Missions in Cities Coast to Coast)("VIPR teams enhance TSA's ability to leverage a variety of resources quickly to increase visible security in any mode of transportation anywhere in the country and are a normal component of TSA's nimble, unpredictable approach to security.")
The fact that potential terrorists know that the security in the US is so high is most likely stopping many from attempting attacks in the first place.
You also can't say they've never caught a terrorist. There have been many stories on the news in the past couple of years about the TSA catching potential terrorists.
It reminds me of all the Y2K people that said: "See, nothing happened. Everything was fine!" When 1000s of man hours went into preventing computer problems.
"terrorizing millions of citizens"
I suppose your definition of terrorism includes checking your shoes and belongings for contraband. I've flown a lot in the last couple of years and the security is a pain-in-the-ass, but necessary. I would rather be safe in this situation. The US has many enemies.
Before 9/11, there were even more flaws and even fewer terrorist attacks. Most of the people DHS has caught as "terrorists" are only defined as terrorists because of a broadening in the legal definition of terrorism.
But the security isn't necessary. It doesn't stop trivial attacks we could come up with on here, and it's not meant to, it's meant to pacify people like you who demand SOMETHING be done.
We'd be safer without the theater because we'd know what was going on.
Also, the freedoms we lose to this useless security aren't worth the trade-off. They wouldn't be even if the security worked, let alone with it being unworkable and counter-productive.
"It doesn't stop trivial attacks we could come up with on here"
Show me an attack that's happened in the last 10 years.
"it's meant to pacify people like you"
I feel like you are on the side of the terrorists. If not, they love people like you. You fight for your right to have more security holes in our system.
As a developer, it would be like saying that I want to fight for no firewall and updates because it slows down the process of development and makes things to complicated.
"But the security isn't necessary. It doesn't stop trivial attacks we could come up with on here, and it's not meant to, it's meant to pacify people like you who demand SOMETHING be done."
How do you know? It's not like you can go back in time and change security to see if we have less attacks.
"Also, the freedoms we lose to this useless security aren't worth the trade-off. They wouldn't be even if the security worked, let alone with it being unworkable and counter-productive."
Okay, so if we do take all the security precautions away and there are attacks, can we hold you (and everyone that wants this) personally responsible?
It's kind of like when I've argued with ex-girlfriends in the past: They keep fighting and fighting on a certain subject..I let them see the error of their ways (usually with bad consequences)..and in the end, I get blamed anyway.
If the error means any deaths, I don't want to take that chance to show you I'm right. I would imagine you would then still blame the US government instead for their foreign policy.
It's not useless security and it's very selfish of you to demand less security simply because you are inconvenienced. yes it means a little less freedom, but it's for your own good.
> "Show me an attack that's happened in the last 10 years."
"I have a rock here that keeps tigers away."
"What? That's crazy talk."
"Well, you don't see any tigers around do ya?"
Not to mention, based on what we know of terrorists caught plotting against the Western world in the past decade, nearly all were discovered by intelligence networks (i.e. the CIA/NSA), not checkpoint searches. In fact, at least one incident passed security just fine but relied on quick-thinking passengers to subdue to the terrorist.
..and if we had no security, would it be any better?
I'm shocked at all the anti-security people here on HN. Do you also have no password on you wireless connection and pay for goods online with no SSL?
I would really like to see if the people downvoting have any security precautions in place in their daily lives. If so, they are a little hypocritical.
> I'm shocked at all the anti-security people here on HN.
Only by your misconceptions of useful security, and how it can be cobble together from unrelated and broken parts.
> Do you also have no password on you wireless connection
Of course I don't have a password on my wireless. Otherwise how could anyone who needed a connection use it? Sheesh.
The only reason to fear someone on your LAN is because you aren't secure. If you job involves deploying anything Internet facing you can't rely on a firewall to keep the bad people away.
>I would really like to see if the people downvoting have any security precautions in place in their daily lives.
Of course we do. I look both ways before crossing the street, I don't burn candles unattended, I fix all visible "broken windows", and I don't use any measures that don't offer at least a fair bit of protection in the given context. Weak layers are a distraction and a problem, to you.
> If so, they are a little hypocritical.
Not at all. You'd probably (hopefully) object if I came to your house and replaced your smoke detector with a unicorn detector and a bad-stuff detector, even though you now had twice the number of security devices as before.
If you understand why you'd object to those you'll start to understand why I object to what you see as security measures.
> ..and if we had no security, would it be any better?
YES!
Than fake security, I mean.
If we had no security we'd know it and we wouldn't take pictures we didn't want seen, or write email we didn't want read. A realistic view is always preferable.
"Otherwise how could anyone who needed a connection use it? Sheesh."
When enough people use your wireless connection and you get slapped with an IP letter for your ISP, you will realize the error of your ways.
"The only reason to fear someone on your LAN is because you aren't secure. If you job involves deploying anything Internet facing you can't rely on a firewall to keep the bad people away."
Yet, you still take security precautions. A firewall was just a example of taking a security precaution.
"even though you now had twice the number of security devices as before."
Is this a joke?
"Than fake security, I mean."
I'm still not quite sure what this "real security" is as opposed to "fake security" that we have now..and I don't think you do either. You haven't brought up one point.
> I'm still not quite sure what this "real security" is as opposed to "fake security" that we have now..and I don't think you do either. You haven't brought up one point.
You haven't seen one point...
Airline security taking the plate away from the person when they could just buy another plate down the hall and carry it onto the same airplane. That's fake security.
As is anything that purports to offer a benefit but that in examination, does not, or where the "benefit" isn't for some reason.
>> "even though you now had twice the number of security devices as before."
> Is this a joke?
People have been asking themselves that about your posts.
But no, it was not. It's a serious example of how you recognize fake security, and reject it, at one level but not at another because it's out of your league. But you don't recognize this and presume to lecture those who understand more than you.
> Yet, you still take security precautions. A firewall was just a example of taking a security precaution.
I take actual precautions. I don't have a rabbit's foot, four-leafed clover, or the like.
> When enough people use your wireless connection and you get slapped with an IP letter for your ISP, you will realize the error of your ways.
All you authoritarians speak is pain, and you LIKE it. You're just cackling with glee waiting for me to be hauled away.
BTW, traffic from my LAN doesn't have to reach the Internet anywhere 'near' me. No, I appear to be a mild-mannered business. One day a misaddressed and ultimately unjust takedown will ruin your month though and you'll have only yourself and your millions of rabid and vapid brethren to thank.
> Show me an attack that's happened in the last 10 years.
Off the top of my head, there was that incident at LAX where some guys shot up the El Al ticket counter, another shooting rampage at Fort Hood, and a third at the DC Holocaust Museum. I believe that more can be found if one were to look, I'm just doing this from memory.
Your statement that security in the US is high is absurd. There are so many holes that it's ridiculous. We're protecting certain things, but ignoring others. If somebody wants to create terror in the US, it would be trivial to blow up an airport security line (those places get awfully crowded), pull of a Mumbai-style shooting rampage of hotels or shopping malls, or even blow up or hijack a plane by taking advantage of the many ways into the "sterile" area in airports that don't pass through the TSA.
> Show me an attack that's happened in the last 10 years.
After September 11, I personally wrote a letter to the Middle East telling them to knock it off. You're welcome.
Or, in more words: "No attacks have occurred" is not sufficient evidence for the efficacy of TSA and co. A similar argument can, after all, be made for the efficacy of any other absurd measure—and unlike my angry letter, the TSA, as well as its equivalents in other countries (some of which HAVE had attacks) has been repeatedly demonstrated to be incompetent and ineffective.
> I feel like you are on the side of the terrorists.
Calling anybody who questions political power-grabbing a terrorist is absurd. Details of this particular instance aside, we should always be able to question and scrutinize this sort of action. If not, then there will be very little left of democracy.
> yes it means a little less freedom, but it's for your own good.
The US only exists because we used to have people wiser than this. Sam Adams exemplified their response: "May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." I cannot believe our lives are more significant than theirs, which they willingly risked over what's really important.
> It's not useless security and it's very selfish of you to demand less security simply because you are inconvenienced. yes it means a little less freedom, but it's for your own good.
It's not your right to take my freedom so you can feel a little safer. Freedom trumps safety, that's why we have a constitution, to define the freedoms you can't take for any reason, including safety. You should read the fourth amendment sometime, it was written specifically to stop people like you from using the absurd arguments you're now using to take my freedom.
> You fight for your right to have more security holes in our system.
You aren't looking to plug any holes, just place a big flag in front of them and declare them handled. You want security theater the way you want a kiss from mom, to make you feel safe because the monsters under the bed are beyond your comprehension.
> I feel like you are on the side of the terrorists. If not, they love people like you.
I know you won't hear this, but hopefully someone like you and not emotionally invested in this will.
Things I do may actually decrease the number of threats in the world, or their severity. Thing you advocate for will only make things worse by ignoring real holes pointed out by real experts.
Not only is your knee-jerk security-over-freedom response and increase military spending exactly what the terrorists want (they broke the USSR doing this, they're well on their way to taking out the USA with the same system.) but by focusing on band-aids for the current manifestation of terrorism instead of real fixes you're the one creating not only the biggest public-works boondoggle ever, but one totally incapable of stopping attacks.
> If the error means any deaths, I don't want to take that chance to show you I'm right.
Of course not. You've misidentified and overblown a risk and you wouldn't want to stop harping on it, even if it's far less likely than things you could do something about.
> I would imagine you would then still blame the US government instead for their foreign policy.
Well, duh. Canada and Sweden aren't as hated.
But you throw this out there only to straw-man it, when it's the truth that you're allergic to. Other people are as smart as we are and if we humiliate and kill them they're going to do the same to us.
If you could clean up the crack problem in your town you'd cut down on theft far more than by buying everyone better locks. Because then the thieves would just break windows, mug people, do knock-invasions, etc.
You're pissing off (killing family and friends of) people with just as much drive and intellect as us here on HN and some of them are putting every minute of free time into literally devising way to kill smug first-world twits like yourself who sit around and act all paranoid about a 1/1M chance of dying in terrorism while your armed forces kill 1/150 Iraqis. Until you wake up you are going to be creating smart and dedicated enemies who will stop at nothing to ruin you - if only because it's the only way to get you to stop.
But I'm sure you'll just write this off as "Blaming the USA".
> How do you know? It's not like you can go back in time and change security to see if we have less attacks.
Because any decent geek can invent three ways to slip a weapon (a sharp edge, a thin poker, a tazer, incapacitating spray, etc) onto a plane. I've seen security confiscate collectible plates from someone, provide them with a stern lecture of the risks (which apparently include unarmed terrorist who fly speculatively, hoping to acquire a knitting needle, or plate shard from a fellow passenger), and send the hapless tourist on their way. Then, in the secure area of the terminal just 20m away, are stores selling virtually identical plates.
Obviously taking that plate did nothing except perhaps create a disgruntled person potentially willing to cause problems.
> Okay, so if we do take all the security precautions away and there are attacks, can we hold you (and everyone that wants this) personally responsible?
Sure. If we can hold you responsible for all the deaths that happened because we spent money on the DHS and the TSA instead of more ambulances and doctors. And the deaths caused by your armed forces (well over a million in the last ten years) in retribution for the attacks of an unrelated group on you.
> I let them see the error of their ways (usually with bad consequences).
Are you always this right about it?
> It's not useless security and it's very selfish of you to demand less security simply because you are inconvenienced. yes it means a little less freedom, but it's for your own good.
No, it is worthless security because it doesn't make us more secure. Because of that it's not for my good. So all the inconvenience is not only wasted, it's spent on a pointless and thuggish bureaucracy which breeds complacent followers so accustomed to being ordered around by armed officers they don't realize this isn't the USA once was.
> As a developer, it would be like saying that I want to fight for no firewall and updates because it slows down the process of development and makes things to complicated.
No, as a developer it would be like saying, "I don't care how many layers of ROTn you use, it doesn't provide any security."
I think it'd be perfectly reasonable to say that as a developer, and that it's especially reasonable to present my opinions on physical security too because I'm not only a consumer of society, but I pay for my piece of it and want to get something worthwhile.
I suspect that either people are growing tired of the polarization or they think you're trolling.
Polarization and framing: you (and the TSA and media) have presented an amalgamation of various half-baked ideas, thrown them in a bag with some actual proven ideas, and slapped a big "security" label on it. It's impossible to have a productive discussion if you're using overly broad terminology, or defining words differently. Then, you turn it into a binary debate by labeling those who disagree with your particular brand of "security" as "anti-security." Start by defining, in terms of the intended result and means to get there, exactly what you mean by "security," and don't lump all kinds of "security" together under one label.
Trolling: since this type of conversation almost invariably produces back and forth arguments between people thinking, "If only they read my own unique perspective, maybe they'll finally understand." The first word that pops into my mind when someone starts this kind of conversation is troll. You know that most of HN is vocally opposed to the kind of child-groping security theater the TSA is practicing, so you might be better received if you tried to explain your security goals in ways that appeal to that audience. For example, give us solid metrics that were decided upon before a new security measure was enacted, demonstrably correlate to actual crime, improve after the measure is implemented, and don't cause undue burden on freedom or the economy (where by "undue" I mean cost more in time, money, or liberty than the time, money, or liberty gained by implementing the measure).
You're not being "silenced" dude, chill out. You're getting downvoted (rightly or wrongly) because people either disagree with you, or find your arguments unconstructive, or both.
I happen to strongly disagree with your position, but I'm happy to read what you said and consider it.
I just find that freedom (as a value) trumps security... I mean, none of us are - afaik - planning to live forever, and I personally don't consider a life to be worth living unless it can be lived free from oppression. Life in a country that values freedom and liberty as core principles is dangerous... ok, we get it. And more than a few of us are quite happy with that state of affairs.
This is all also, of course, ignoring that most of what passes for "enhancing security" today is really just "security theatre" that isn't doing a damn thing to actually make anybody any safer.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty
to purchase a little Temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
That was Benjamin Franklin, a man that once fought for the freedoms you enjoy today. People died for you to enjoy the lifestyle you currently have, yet you are willing to trade other people's freedoms for your own safety.
Anyway, be happy because a majority in the US believes in the same bullshit that you do.
Yes, I down-voted you. Mostly because you're a zealot that just repeats the gospel you saw on TV and when reading such opinions (stated as facts nonetheless) makes me lose faith in humanity a little.
This is exactly why authoritarians like you prefer less freedom for the people. Because otherwise you can't make them listen to you.
And of course you're just as blind to the consequences here as with airline security. You'd sell out everyone else's right to have a say, for the flawed representative democracy we have, without even ensuring it'd even listen to you.
If you suddenly noticed a real flaw and wanted it addressed you'd find yourself just as ignored by the system as we are by you.
They know it's a hassle to go after people who are wealthy and can afford their own lawyers so they avoid it unless there is something political to be gained.
This theme repeats itself at every level, local, state and federal.
This is why when I see things like a national database for facial recognition it's pretty easy to accurately predict for every one "terrorist" caught each decade, thousands of people will experience life-traumatizing hassle that they didn't deserve.
Just look at the TSA and their VIPR "squad" - if they are not defunded soon, they will become the nightmare of the USA, never catching one "terrorist" but themselves terrorizing millions of citizens for no purpose but to "keep us in our place".
I think we will really get a demonstration of this at the upcoming RNC and DNC conventions (ironically funded by taxpayers).