OT- Re: World Trade Crash and a bit about computers

From: Arthur E. Clark <arthur.clark3_at_verizon.net>
Date: Tue Sep 11 21:46:25 2001

At 08:37 PM 9/11/2001 -0400, you wrote:
> > On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Sellam Ismail wrote:
> > > "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
> > > safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
> >
> > Thank you, Sellam
> >
> > Those who would destroy the country in the name of protecting it are a
> > bigger enemy than those who attacked this morning.
> >
> > --
> > Grumpy Ol' Fred

Yes. That is the other threat posed by the events of today. Some in our
society, the reactionary elements in the federal law enforcement and
"national security" agencies, will no doubt try to use these events as an
excuse to further gut civil liberties which have already been nearly
eviscerated by the miserable failure known as the "War on Drugs." The
congressional reaction to the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah federal
building produced new federal laws greatly expanding the power of the FBI
and other federal law enforcement agencies to surveil and infiltrate
organizations they wish to investigate, even if the organization in
question cannot be connected with criminal activity. The same opportunists
who capitalized on that tragedy will not doubt try to do the same with this
one. Unfortunately, they will probably succeed.


>The only way to avoid events like this is to increase security at
>airports -- which often is lax in this country... I've heard
>of real security at airlines like El Al which does a serious
>baggage and weapons check.

It's sad. At the height of the late 80s wave of terrorist airliner
bombings, I went to the UK on a high school trip. The security at JFK was
a joke. The person tending the x-ray machine wasn't even looking at the
screen half of the time. Gate and checkpoint security were not much
better. In contrast, in Ireland on the trip home to the US, two guards
were glued to the x-ray machine monitor, everyone's passports were
individually checked, and every one of us was questioned extensively before
we were permitted to through _two_ metal detectors. After that we got to
go to another checkpoint to get our tickets back so that we could go to the
gate to then have our tickets checked against our passports. _That_ is
real security.
Received on Tue Sep 11 2001 - 21:46:25 BST