

Bruce Schneier: Refuse to be terrorized - iwr
http://www.schneier.com/essay-124.html

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makecheck
From 2006, and sadly so; this advice should have been followed back in 2002,
and been the reality by 2010. Schneier is well known, but somehow still isn't
being heard by the right ears...how can we help change that?

~~~
cdavid
What seems interesting to me as a European is that this type of reactions
happened mostly in the US. Terror attacks have happened for a long time in
Europe (red brigades, IRA, algerian terror cells, etc...), and the reaction
has been quite different to say the least. Granted, the amount of damages has
been different (nothing near 9/11 has ever happened on European soil), but I
don't think that explains it.

This is even more incomprehensible to me because I have always considered
American citizens to be more attached to civil liberties and individual
freedom than most Europens.

~~~
dfghjkhgbfd
Events in Northern Ireland have killed approx 3600 in the last 40years - not
too far off.

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MikeCapone
The timeframe probably makes the psychological impact different (over 40 years
vs. in one day), though.

~~~
dfghjkhgbfd
Yes two generations of train stations closed because of bomb scares, of weekly
news reports of a new bomb blast.

~~~
MikeCapone
"Different" means exactly that. I'm not downplaying it, just saying that it's
not as easy to compare as saying that the number of deaths is similar.

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ajays
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I remember reading about airliners being blown
up: Air India Flight 182, Pan Am 103, etc. etc. Red Brigade, PFLP, IRA, etc.
etc. So many planes were hijacked, blown up, or even shot down (Korean Air by
the Soviets). And yet we didn't start cowering in terror like we do today.
Here's a quick link; just read it and see how safe we've been since the late
90s: <http://www.historycentral.com/Terrorhistory.html> We were safe without
any groping or x-raying or taking off our shoes and throwing away our bottles
of baby's milk.

What happened? How did we become a nation of wimps??

~~~
angrycoder
What happened? Our leaders pursued a policy of fear and vengeance and the
public ate it up like starving dogs.

~~~
jonursenbach
The shock of 9/11 will do that to a person, heh.

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sliverstorm
"a Port of Seattle terminal was evacuated because a couple of dogs gave a
false alarm for explosives"

That doesn't sound like living in terror, that sounds like good sense. IIRC
dogs are pretty reliable (false alarms are rare) and one terminal isn't the
whole airport.

~~~
gcheong
I wonder why, instead of X-rays and pat-downs they don't just use dogs. I
would trust that a dog would be able to detect a bomb on a person much more
readily than a person who's eyes are glazed over after looking at the nth
person's scan or pat-down. And they gladly work for just love and kibble. Of
course the TSA claims they are able to detect weapons such as guns and knives
too, but I believe metal detectors are probably just as effective along with
secure cockpits, air marshals on-board, and a public ready to fight back if
necessary. Am I missing something about dogs that would make this impractical?

~~~
lokijuhygtfrd
>Am I missing something about dogs ?

Puppy breeders don't make million $ campaign contributions or hire TSA
officials as 'advisers'

~~~
bmalicoat
Also some people are terrified of dogs so having one sniff over them would be
worse than being groped. Not that the TSA cares about feelings or anything
though.

~~~
dfghjkhgbfd
Thats why airport sniffer dogs are often beagles rather than the German
Sheppard/Bloodhounds used for cargo. Beagles are small cute and non-
threatening, and they don't have to climb all over you to smell explosives.

By contrast the police here got German Sheppards to sniff for drugs on
suspects on the street. It turns out the police didn't actually buy trained
sniffer dogs - they just wanted something big and fierce looking to
'encourage' people to cooperate.

Not that the TSA would consider any such thing.

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garazy
I agree with the coverage of events by the press/media encourage people to be
terrorized. If the media get a story that will sell papers / get eye balls
watching TV screens they will run with it until the cows come home
(<http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/382900.html>).

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izendejas
We're not really afraid/terrorized. We only require that leaders protect us
and some are willing to forgo more liberties than others.

If we were terrorized, we would not fly by the millions... every day!

I won't get into the civil liberties topic. There are trade-offs we will all
never agree on. One of those is security v. liberties. So everyone just tug
their way and we'll see where we end up.

~~~
grandalf
Your view attributes much rationality to how people are acting.

My view of it is that humans routinely miscalculate risk and behave quite
irrationally from a risk-minimization perspective. At the same time, a public
that is largely apathetic about politics in general is easily moved by fear-
mongering, us-vs-them rhetoric, etc. -- like any fad, terrorism simply
captures the imagination of some people.

Attempts to stop the overreaction suffer from the typical challenge: the
majority who don't care about terrorism care about the issue less than the
vocal minority for whom it's a very big (as in scary or as in profitable)
deal.

Also, due to the government's habit of paying for terrorism prevention, the
typical corruption/overspending problems happen far more easily than they
would in a decentralized system. And, due to the political nature of terrorism
prevention, our leaders work to minimize the extent to which they would likely
be blamed for an attack rather than working to make us feel/be safer.

~~~
izendejas
Funny, I was going to start and end my post with similar statements. My first
statement was a quote "a person is smart but people are stupid" (due to herd
behavior). And I was going to end with the fact that many leaders care more
about maintaining their seats than losing any lives on their watch and so are
ready scare the minority who actually are not afraid of terrorism much more
than they are about religions, people and ways of life they ignore (most of
the author's examples are in fact evidence of this).

But I edited my post because statistically the majority of us are not afraid.
We care, and definitely vote for leaders who refuse to terrorize us a la
Cheney, but we know we have to adapt our way of life to minimize the risks--
which can be confused with fear, but is actually the rational thing to do,
since we're dealing with irrational people.

I was too succinct, but yes the majority needs to do a better job of
controlling the message we send to terrorists--that I should have conceded.

~~~
grandalf
Minimize the risks? There is no significant risk posed by terrorism. It's
equivalent to the risk of spending a few extra minutes in the sun each week
w/o sunscreen in Northern Canada.

------
jbyers
(2006)

------
aneth
"Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British government
arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its
European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures
like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it
endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how
scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have
truly failed."

Yes, the terrorists would have failed. Then they would exploit our continued
lack of vigilance and try again and again until we were scared and started to
crack down. These arguments that we should not respond to terrorism are a
bunch of lovey dove hopeful hogwash. Terrorists aren't going to give up
because we ignored their destructive acts. They will keep blowing more shit up
until they are dead or get the attention they seek.

~~~
wdewind
"This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are
things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them
involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific
plots."

<http://www.schneier.com/essay-038.html>

At least read the next paragraph, dude.

