This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
“Before We Plunge Ahead In Creating a Fishbowl Society of Surveillance, We Might Want to Ask Whether ..."
Americans are already the most spied upon people in history.
Yet spying didn't stop the Newtown massacre, the Boston terror attacks or 9/11.
(Indeed, the FBI interviewed one of the Boston terrorist suspects 2 years ago at the request of the Russian government ... and somehow dropped the ball.)
But D.C. politicians are already using the tragedy of the Boston attacks to shred Internet privacy and increase spying on Americans.
Indeed, a Google search of “increase surveillance after boston” currently yields 45 million hits:
Professor Jonathan Turley is one of the nation’s top constitutional and military law experts.
Turley writes:
For civil libertarians, all terrorist attacks come in two equally predictable parts.
First, there is the terrorist attack itself — a sad reality of our modern life. Second, comes the inevitable explosion of politicians calling for new security measures and surveillance. We brace ourselves for this secondary blow, which generally comes before we even fully know what occurred in an attack or how it was allowed to occur.
Politicians need to be seen as actively protecting public safety and the easiest way is to add surveillance, reduce privacy and expand the security state. What they are not willing to discuss is the impossibility of detecting and deterring all attacks. The suggestion is that more security measures translate to more public safety. The fact is that even the most repressive nations with the most abusive security services, places such as China and Iran, have not been able to stop terrorist acts.
While police were still combing through the wreckage from the Boston Marathon, politicians ran to cameras to pledge more security measures and surveillance. Indeed, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel demanded more cameras in response to the Boston attack.
Chicago already is one of the most surveilled cities in the United States. Emanuel’s solution: add some more. It is a perfectly Pavlovian response of politicians eager to appear as champions of public safety.
We need to resist the calls for a greater security state and put this attack into perspective. These two brothers built homemade bombs with over-the-counter pressure cookers. They placed the devices in one of the most surveilled areas of Boston with an abundance of police and cameras [Proof here]. There is only so much that a free nation can do to avoid such an attack. Two men walked in a crowd and put two bags down on the ground shortly before detonation.
No one is seriously questioning the value of having increased surveillance and police at major events. That was already the case with the Boston Marathon. However, privacy is dying in the United States by a thousand papercuts from countless new laws and surveillance systems. Before we plunge ahead in creating a fishbowl society of surveillance, we might want to ask whether such new measures or devices will actually make us safer or just make us appear safer.
Indeed, the government has wasted money and resources on things that do nothing to protect us (and might even backfire) … instead of taking the steps which would actually increase our safety.
- advertisements -
It's called Blowback.
http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Second-Edition-Consequences-American/dp/0...
But I'm soooo scared!
"Indeed, the government has wasted money and resources on things that do nothing to protect us (and might even backfire) … instead of taking the steps which would actually increase our safety."
They want most of us dead, it is their own safety that concerns them.
Damn straight! The first questions we had were, "Why weren't the garbage cans checked?" when they thought the bomb was placed in a garbage can and "Where the hell were the bomb sniffing dogs at the finish line?"
One of the most heavily cameraed cities in America, and nothing was done to prevent this. Now how are they going to explain this to the 8 year old kid's family or the other two families who lost a loved one?
I call bullshit on this. This bullshit could have been prevented with fundamental security procedures.
Now the only thing to ask is, why were they having us look at Boston? What crap are the idiots up to now?
And now the idiots will be with their hands out, "We need more money to prevent another tragedy like this!" Bullshit.
The only reliable ticket to safety is a prosperous middle class enjoying property and civil rights, here and abroad. And that applies especially to those Middle Eastern/Central Asian/'Belt of Conflict' zones where we'd rather bomb than discuss our own supreme hypocracy. And....wait for it....China. Them too.
Meanwhile, USA out of Eurasia, cut the security budget about 50%, and bring it the fuck on.
Google THAT shit. Bet you get about zero hits.
Are you serious? Abandon the lucrative Heroin trade to the SE Asian and MidEast heroin producing countries?
How would the Overlords replace that substantial flow of revenue?
There may be more support for your ideas than you would otherwise think -
A quick Google search for "Is there too much US Security?" produces 281 Million "hits".
Also - very good Economist article on exactly this futility - http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/04/deterring_terrorism
It's not about deterring terrorism, it's about herding sheep. For the children!
The Sheeple will be all for it.
How can you not believe in Cargo Cults?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmlYe2KS0-Y
Or would a Field of Dreams Security State be more apt--if we build it, the terrorists won't come?
Or is it a suicide cult--we have to kill our freedoms so they can't?
Beats me--this shit's too fucking crazy to grock from any sane perpective.
Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man.
-- R. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land.
cant explain why but those folks kinda remind me of hardcore western leftists.
End the Neo-Con wars!
damn it
I've got a place the down voter can kiss, mindful that Bushama is the ruling party.
Heck no!
Terrorism is a perpetual motion job creating machine.
Had we given Granny full cavity searches, this Boston thing woulda never, ever happened.
End of Conversation.
More Surveillance or just follow up?
Russian security told FBI that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was radical Islam followerhttp://www.ctvnews.ca/world/russian-security-told-fbi-that-tamerlan-tsar...
NOW THAT WAS A BIG FUCKING DEAL MR PREDIDENK
- Joe Bidenmytime