Body Scanners for the London Underground 761
Ronald Dumsfeld writes "In a report in the TimesOnline, it is alleged that those lovely see-through-your-clothes scanners are to be installed in London's Tube stations. Part of the UK's Military-industrial complex, QinetiQ stands to make £150,000 to £2 million per station ($260,000 - $3.4 million) with their
Millimetre Wave Imagers."
The perception of security (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially it boils down to this. However you believe a government should spend tax dollars, they're going to get spent in two ways: to benefit campaign supporters and cronies, and to do things that mollify the public just enough to make the re-election fight a little easier. A terrorist incident makes people feel less safe, so politicians spend money on things that make them feel safer. Good, bad, effective, useless... doesn't matter. It just has to be perceived as responsive.
Expensive scanners in tube stations? Brilliant!
Security costs money. Of course, the money gets spent on expensive and showy equipment, not on better training of security personnel (or screening of security personnel - some TSA screeners look like they should have their mittens safety-pinned to their coats). But it's all bread and circuses. It's about the perception of security. And governments are great at spending money to create that.
- Greg
I think its interesting... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The perception of security (Score:3, Insightful)
Hype it up! (Score:5, Insightful)
* Population of London: 5.5m
* Average deaths per day: 215
* Increase of death rate on 7 July: 23%
If there had been 50 extra heart attacks in London on 7 July, do you think that it would have been noticed? If it weren't for the wall to wall media coverage, this would have been a non-event.
Britain used to have a really good track record on terrorism. When the IRA blew something up, there would be a brief note about it on the news, then nothing. Terrorism is about publicity, and over-reporting it simply feeds it. But it seems that the dymanics have changed. Now there are too many organisations who have a vested interest in a continual state of terrorism.
Profit range? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's quite some gap. Suggests that figures are being plucked out of the air, perhaps?
Cheers,
Ian
Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Explosive 'sniffers' (Score:2, Insightful)
Public more willing to accept surveillance? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm regularly in and around London, use the underground and the trains.
This scanner deal will be as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Do you get stopped for carrying an iPod, or some other music device?
No?
Then what if that's just the cover for a bomb?
There is no protection from terrorism. If somebody really wants to get you, they will.
If you spend your life worrying over it, stress'll get you before the bomb.
Be vigilant, yes. Watch out for the unclaimed baggage on the tube or the bus.
Keep your eyes open.
If everyone does that, you've got the best intelligent surveillance network in the world. The general public.
My first reaction to seeing the bombs go off was sadness for the people hit.
The second was a wave of resignation that phoney Tony would use this as an excuse to get additional surveillance in, and railroad the ID scheme.
Part one dead of track.. We see what happens next.
Re:Profit range? (Score:3, Insightful)
Another Tragedy (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it personally very disturbing how much people are willing to sell away their liberties for "security". We've all been to see Episode 3, but did we let its message get lost in the pretty effects? Better security could be gotten from not inflicting massive suffering on the world through plain wrong foreign policy.
Nice enough in theory... (Score:2, Insightful)
I see two issues that will probably render this very expensive piece of macherinery fairly ineffective.
First, it is designed to view scads of people at once on video screens. Pinpointing just which person in a mass is the one carrying the "questionable object" may be difficult, particularly during hours of peak use.
Second, after this quote...
"We can solve the modesty issue by overlaying the body with graphics except for the area which causes concern."
The terrorists now all know just where to carry bombs to remain undetected!
Re:The perception of security (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but who's going to bomb a rail platform in Bristol?
The MP's put the showy equipment in showy places so it gets coverage on the BBC nationwide. They provide the illusion of action that filters out through TV screens across the nation, and a downmarket housefrau in Middlesex feels good that the government is doing something.
- Greg
Education (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Middle East Is Everywhere (Score:2, Insightful)
Only because you create it yourselves. In the meantime the country I live in is in no threat at all since we do not occupy other countries and kill their civilians.
Re:Education (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The Middle East Is Everywhere (Score:2, Insightful)
Bomb attacks in London aren't new. The difference is that now the government are hyping the fear.
Re:The perception of security (Score:4, Insightful)
While I take your point on the perception of security in the purchase, you're asking a lot of security staff to detect something deliberatly being hidden with as much accuracy as this technology suppossedly will.
Getting on public transport shouldn't require an interview, lie detector, and strip search before boarding, but it is a common terrorism target and should be protected with the highest security practical.
__Free funny pics and videos [laughdaily.com]
Re:Profit range? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Middle East Is Everywhere (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The perception of security (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobody who's thought about it, in Government or out of it, thinks that the tube can be secured. Making high profile security measures just makes a tempting target for terrorists. The more secured it was claimed to be, the more publicity the attacks bring.
Of course, that helps the governments message of how scared we should all be, so they're happy.
Water enters via the weakest point (Score:5, Insightful)
Bombers then attack concert halls.
We make concert halls secure.
Bombers then attack football stadiums.
We make football stadiums secure...
There is no purely defensive solution to this problem.
--
Toby
Read Schneier's "Beyond Security" (Score:5, Insightful)
Utter stupidity (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure it won't occur to them to simply set their bombs off in a commuter train, or a bus, or a concert, or a cinema or anywhere else with a sizable crowd.
It's actually scary to see the massive lines of people queuing to go through security at most airports thanks to more stringent screening. It would be trivial enough for someone to walk up to that line with a suitcase full of explosives and kill several hundred people.
Terrorism thrives on publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it. How likely are you to die in a car accident, or from a heart attack, or just some other stupid accident/conincidence? Now how likely are you to be bombed? You should be "terrorised" of the free way, not a bunch of extremeists!
So many people die of hunger, disease, and civil war in developing countries every day. I don't know the figures, but I immagine more die daily than in all terrorist attacks in the last few years combined. <i>This</i> is where we should be spending out money. Just maybe, if we did that, people would stop hating developed nations, and stop bombing them!
And how much news coverage do the attrocities mentioned above get? A 30 second blurb on the news once a week, if that at all? Maybe if we treated terrorism that way, it would stop as well!
Think like a terrorist. Your objective is not to kill people, it's to get a message out. Unfortunately, killing people is the easiest way to get attention. Shitloads of attention. Days of prime time TV coverage. Of course you will resort to this method.
However, would you do it if the evening news went something like, "and in other news, London was bombed today. 30 to 50 people are believed to be dead. Now, back to the Simpsons."
Think about it...
Re:Hype it up! (Score:2, Insightful)
Obviously the perpretrators should be caught, and any simple measures that can be done to make something similar harder in the future should be done.
However, it's also a very unusual event, and going to extreme costs to slightly reduce the chance of something similar happening again is losing perspective.
Your poorly thought out emotional appeal just goes to show how irrationally most people react to events such as this.
Re:The perception of security (Score:3, Insightful)
No joke. Excellent example...I recently had the singular joy of going through a US airport. I was forced to take off my boots (I say forced because I initially chose not to, and was still singled out for additional search even though I didn't set off the metal detector), and had my luggage randomly selected for additional search.
Oh, I must have forgotten to mention that I was a soldier returning to Iraq, in uniform, with government-purchased tickets and a valid military ID. Definitely a high-threat passenger.
If I wanted to kill some Americans, I could make it happen much more easily. I have access to a weapon, ammunition, and with a little planning even explosives every single day over here.
Are we more safe because they spent longer searching me than nearly everybody else on the plane? I'm gonna go with a no. Are we safer when the US government spends more per capita on security in Wyoming than New York City? Not really.
It's really just a giant game of whack-a-mole anyway. Make planes safer, they hit subways. Make subways safer, it'll be busses. After that shopping malls, then city streets. Then when random sidewalk bombs and carbombs force the government to stretch themselves so thin that they can barely cover every possible terrorist attack...they'll go back to planes, because lack of funding will have compromised security there.
One of the most effective terrorist attacks ever (not THE most, mind you) was probably the DC sniper...not in lives lost, of course, but in actual disruption to people's daily lives and fear caused. And all an attack like that requires is a guy with a gun, and good aim. You may not even get caught, especially if cover a wide area (multiple cities, for instance).
You can't win a war against terrorists, especially not with cops, soldiers, and gadgets.
Re:Hype it up! (Score:5, Insightful)
The United States has shown the way: How to take advantage of terrorism for profit, entertainment and re-election.
The writeup mentions the military-industrial complex. Maybe we need to start discussing the terror-media-politics complex.
I do hope my sig isn't too optimistic.
-- Terrorism may have turned the United States into a nation of fear and aggression, but it won't succeed in Europe.
Bye Bye Privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel my privacy and liberty slipping away again.
Re:I"d Rather Be Scanned Than Murdered (Score:2, Insightful)
This doesn't solve anything. It'd just move the problem from the carriages to the platforms.
Re:The perception of security (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong! Where did you get trained on Terrorism 101?
Terrorists tend to attack targets at which they will have a high probability of success. This is the reason you rarely here about a terrorist attack thwarted *in-action*. They would love to truck bomb the white house or 10 Downing Street, but they know they would have a low probability of success. While they may have a 10% chance of being able to pull it off, that is too risky. If you actually study terrorism in the past 20 years it becomes very obvious that plots are planned and executed similar to the way a business will plan and execute any action. Both have investments of time, money, and lives and want the maximum return on investment.
There was *no* security to stop the terrorists on July 7th. This is why they selected their targets as they did.
Re:The perception of security (Score:3, Insightful)
Luckily for the British taxpayer this project is never going to get off the ground. The quoted price is for the scanners alone. Add to that the cost of:
Add to that the expense, privacy concerns, and the fact that this wouldn't protect overground trains or buses, and you've got yourself a 'class A1' dead duck.
Re:Anti-terrorist recipe: (Score:5, Insightful)
From wikipedia's article on Northern Ireland: [wikipedia.org]
So...er...you were saying?
Re:Anti-terrorist recipe: (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The perception of security (Score:5, Insightful)
Truly. They should create absolutely marvellous queues where terrorists can blow up bombs and get a whole lot more people killed.
"It just has to be perceived as responsive."
Indeed. Of course, the money could have been spent on things that might actually save some lives, like measures to prevent traffic accidents or healthcare. Which means spending the money on useless security junk actually costs people lives instead.
"It's about the perception of security."
Yep. Sticking a 10 cent blinking diode device in the hand of security guards and calling it a 'bomb detector' would do just as well. Heck, stage a few very public and publicised incidents where an actor is caught by such a device emitting a beep and even a whole bunch of the terrorists would think they couldnt get away with carrying around explosives.
Re:The perception of security (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems to me this is very unlikely to actually come to pass. If it does I think it's probably a shame. The truth is the world will always be somewhat dangerous, terrorists or no. We don't all walk around encased in bubble wrap.
And so... (Score:4, Insightful)
I assume this is only the start of the damage to Britain.
Pointless. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Appeasers go to hell (Score:2, Insightful)
They took the same stance against terrorism in Northern Ireland. People kept on dying on both sides until they sat down and "appeased" the terrorists. While the situation up the North isn't ideal, it sure is far better than it was 20 years ago.
If I may use an analogy, sitting down and talking to terrorists is like brushing and flossing your teeth every day in order to prevent tooth decay and waging a "War On Terror" is the equivalent of taking all your teeth out.
Re:Anti-terrorist recipe: (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Abide by this and guys like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.. can do anything they want to their own people. After all it's all "internal affairs" - tienanamen square anyone? Do we really have to wait until they fire up the ovens and gas chambers until we act? Or isn't that enough in your opinion? Perhaps we wait until they amass an ustoppable armada and congratulate ourselves on being ethical as they roll across our borders?
2a) What if they have no desire to negotiate honestly? Pacification only perpetuates the problems. Look at North Korea and the Non-Proliferation treaty. They used it to aquire nuclear technology and pulled out when they decided they wanted to make bombs. Do you really think Saddam was negotiating in good faith? This only works if you have a carrot AND a stick AND you are ready, willing and able to use the stick AND the other guy knows it.
3) Does "predatory" include making a profit? Without the willing concurrance of corrupt local officials who would sell out to ANYBODY, this wouldn't happen.
5) Although I agree that everyone deserves a certain degree of respect owing to fact of their humanity and that we should appreciate differences, there will always be discontent by minorities by virtue of the fact that they ARE minorities. As a white upper middle class guy I can't count the number of ways big and small I've been screwed over by people of all colors. If I was a minority and inclined to shift blame I can see how I might cite racism but in most cases race had nothing to do with it.
If you want a recipe that works, then how about this? Foster democracy to give everyone a voice and get the people to believe in the democratic process as fair. Have a truly free press to expose the bad people who abuse power in every society. Don't tolerate abuses, no matter where they occur. Recognize that there is no end to human shortcoming and that there is no end point, only the process.
It pains me to think about how many of these things do not truly exist in my own country.
Unfortunately resources are limited and we are forced to focus first on those things that affect our own interests, but why shouldn't people and nations be expected to do this?
I really wish the world was as fischer - price / tinker toy simple as you imagine it to be. Live a few more decades, read the news and lots more history and perhaps you will lose your "peace at any cost" mentality.
Re:I"d Rather Be Scanned Than Murdered (Score:5, Insightful)
You're more likely to die of almost anything else than terrorism in the UK, even if we from now and onwards see an attack like this every year. We could have 30-40 attacks of the current size every year before it'd rival traffic deaths alone.
That kind of money would save far more lives if it was invested on any number of other things. There are 274 stations on the underground. If the average cost is around the million mark, the cost would easily finance another major hospital, for instance.
If terrorism was a significant killer, then yes, a little loss of privacy might be acceptable. But it isn't a significant killer, and blowing it out of proportion only serves the terrorists scare mongering and draw attention away from issues that affect far more people.
Sigh (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems like years ago to me, the bombings made no difference to me at all nor many others. We'll just see them try and force ID cards through and waste money on this sort of thing.
If they really do want to prevent another bombing they should spend the money on more coppers and make them do less paper work. A scanner can detect things but can't detect when someones acting very suspicious.
Re:Hype it up! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a non-event, but the stupid reactions to the attack make me sick. It's as if the government would forbid selling rope after the hypothetical strangulation incident. Wow, I feel really safe now!
Londoner who has been to Israel and the States (Score:5, Insightful)
Fly to USA: Fingerprint scanning. Slight increase in time creates larger backlog. Clearing customs takes longer.
London Underground: Simple platform overcrowding at London Bridge Station, creates hour long waits *to get through the barriers*
---------------------
But I think the biggest parallel I must draw is between Israel border protection and the London Underground. In Israel a large amoutn of the suicide bombers detonated their packages at the border entry points, killing soldiers and innocent fellow border crossers.
If they install these machines at Tube stations, then terrorists will have a new target: at the point of inspection. They will be able to take out staff as well as passengers and entrance facilities. They do not have to even get on a damn tube.
Why spend money creating both a target and a delay???? The money would be better spent on building dialogue with the dis-enfrachised Muslim community. I mean who is going to be the main targets of 'spot-checks'? The man with the beard and skull-cap.
Re:The perception of security (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, perhaps it is money well invested since the logistics involved in a subway terrorism incident aren't pretty, but neither were the logistics of for the people trapped in the World Trade Center nor even the children in Beslan.
Since there will always be a way, I think it's a matter of changing the will instead. The money should be spent on winning the hearts and minds of the people of other countries. I'm not talking about the terrorists but those who the terrorists use for support. Blow up a bus... increase aid to starving countries, shoot down a plane, build a dozen schools or a community center in a struggling nation. Oh, and I'd still have my gov'ts police and intelligence seek out and punish those who took the action.
Re:The Middle East Is Everywhere (Score:2, Insightful)
And his type of idiotic thinking is considered "insightful" on slashdot. This is a joke.
FFS (Score:5, Insightful)
London is absolutely fine the way it is, this country is fine the way it is we do not need radical changes. The risk of a bomb going off is exactly the same has it has been for the last 5 years, just like the chance of the lottery numbers being "1,2,3,4,5,6", its only peoples perception that has changed.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anti-terrorist recipe: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The perception of security (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the shortsightedness of typical politicians, "less critical" stations will be left out to save money and the above is exactly what will happen.
In two minds about this (Score:3, Insightful)
The mistake in the article is right here, IMHO:
I'm not sure that's true. Londoners and others have been remarkably resilient in the face of last week's attacks, with many transport staff and regular travellers being interviewed and saying that while they were shaken by the attacks, they absolutely wouldn't let it change their day-to-day lives, and they'd be back on the Underground the next day.
The greater level of surveillance implied by these machines may or may not make a difference to security, but will certainly cost a lot and upset a lot of people who don't like the idea of several random LU staff seeing them naked every day. They caused a stir with this when they started talking about using it at airports, and AFAIK the only plans currently in place at airports make it an optional alternative to a traditional "patting down". TFA does mention some methods QinetiQ have considered to address this issue, and I think the public would want to know that one of them was in place before they accepted this particular system.
I'm kind of in two minds about this whole thing. On the one hand, I'm about to go and send a message to two friends who were in one of the carriages that exploded, and were hospitalised as a result. Of course I wish they hadn't been there and no-one had been hurt last week. On the other hand, I know some other friends who seem to get stopped and anything up to strip searched almost every time they go to an airport, obviously causing them significant inconvenience and distress. Being checked out, either closely and physically or by a machine that essentially strips you, is not a pleasant experience. I find the fact that this happens to a couple of very attractive female friends far, far more often than any of the guys, even where they're travelling to or from the same home country, pretty telling.
If this actually helps security, maybe it's a price that most people would be willing to pay, though I'm not sure I entirely believe that. OTOH, this sounds like something expensive and good-looking that actually does jack to make anyone safer, and these systems do get abused, as those friends of mine can testify first-hand.
At the end of the day, you can never directly protect every key government installation, transport link, utility supplier, military base, and 101 other potential terrorist targets. It's just not possible, no matter how much technology and how many people you have. You can make it a bit more difficult for the bad guys, but the best ways to counter terrorism are based on intelligence/awareness (including the general public, not just some secret-agent-type mole), not creating unnecessary motivations for terrorist reprisals in the first place, and simply refusing to be intimidated by it so the tactic is shown not to be effective (as Londoners are doing so well today).
Cue profound wisdom from Franklin etc...
Re:The perception of security (Score:5, Insightful)
He said: "None. The measures are effective as they can be; we cannot avoid all terrorist attacks just as we cannot avoid all crime." I was impressed, really. Intelligent man.
There is a point of diminishing returns for everything.
Re:Over-reaction (Score:2, Insightful)
True but as anyone who knows politics knows, you should never believe anything until it's been officially denied.
Once Again, The Terrorists Win (Score:2, Insightful)
They reduced our freedom.
They reduced the quality of daily life, due to above point. With the goal of brining it down to their level, as they dont feel its 'fair' we have a 'better life' then they do.
They increased the general persons level of 'fear', and reduced our feeling of safety, and trust.
Yep, just what they want.
Re:The perception of security (Score:5, Insightful)
If serious actions are now taken to try and prevent them succeeding again, then two things will happen :-
1) Our freedoms will be eroded and we _will_ be terrorised by the spectre of metal detectors, exposive sniffers and body searches when untertaking any normal, day-to-day, things like getting on a bus or entering a shop.
2) We will NOT stop them from doing it again, because it is simply not possible to prevent someone hell-bent on suicide from blowing themselves up!
Therefore, at least on the "home front", we have to not impose restrictions on our freedoms in the futile attempt to curtail the movements and actions of the terrorists. This will be the most difficult thing for the Government, who apparently believe that "taking action" is always the answer because if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail!
We in London and the rest of the UK do, however, have to return to a vigilance akin to the height of the IRA campaign and should watch out for unattended packages. Let us not start suspecting each other as we remember that the bombs did not target any religion, race, creed, or colour, but were an indisciminately blunt weapon affecting any and all in its path.
We need to know what they are hoping to achieve. We should not simply capitulate like the Spanish because that sends the message that terrorism works, and simply passes the problem on to our neighbours. We can try and make sure it becomes more and more difficult for them to recruit new terrorists. We must simply stop pissing people off, and use our power to make life easier for the down trodden and huddled masses, for it is amongst their ranks that the recruiters have the most success.
To this end, it is right that the G8 conference continued, and it is right that we should help Africa, but we should also finally put to rest the Isreal/Palestine problem and give aid to Palestine to help them rebuild. We should then finish the jobs in Afghanistan and Iraq by rebuilding their countries and handing them back to local governments when we can offer aid, be it monetary or military, fiscal or physical and we can be invited to help, rather than imposing our solution.
But I'm still waiting for Our Tony to use this as a reason for the introduction of ID Cards and GPS transponders in our cars, because it can't be far off now.
Re:Water enters via the weakest point (Score:2, Insightful)
There is one. It's called the big brother. And that is what we are heading for. I was resently informed that next time I'm getting a passport, I will propably need to give my fingerprints also. And tose fingerprints will go into large database, which will then be used to solve crimes.
So, I will be a suspect of a crime, even when I have never been arrested. And if you think this will stop here, think again. Big brother is watching...
Re:The Middle East Is Everywhere (Score:2, Insightful)
First off, the common population in Israel, are just regular people who'd love nothing more than NOT to be involved in any of the political bullshit that currently takes hold over there.
Second, and most importantly, the poeple that had settled the land to cause this commotion in the first place, are pretty much all dead or in the process. How does it make sense to say it's "their fault" if none of the original people are involved?
Third, whenever things finally settle, a bomb goes off.
The current situation suggests that there is a small minority of individuals who *financially benefit* from all of this. Peace time means no recruitment. Satisfaction means no desparation, and desparation is one of the leading conditions that facilitate acts of terror.
Re:Appeasers go to hell (Score:5, Insightful)
However, there are still occupations/actions done by Israel that are simply wrong and do nothing but give Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations an easy route to getting recruits.
For Israel to act more reasonably towards the Palestinians is not caving in to Osama and crew. Quite the opposite actually. It's whenever some kind of peace settlement is about to be made between Israel and Palestinians that the most terrorist attacks tend to occur. The terrorists fear peace more than anything. It robs them of power. I am so fucking sick of people claiming "We do not let terrorists control our actions", and then right when one of these bombings happen in response to peace talks demand going into "Fuck the general population and do whatever we need to weed out terrorists" mode. Well guess what Sparky, you did exactly what the terrorists wanted. Peace talks are caput, violence has escalated, and the conflict Al Qaeda is depending on to become a movement to shape the Middle East into what they want continues.
I hope you don't confuse what you label "Islamists" with the general Muslim population. Because that's just want the terrorists want us to think.
How does it feel to be Osama's bitch?
Re:Those who paid attention during Fahrenheit 9/11 (Score:3, Insightful)
Are as idiotic as those who pay attention when Rush Limbaugh opens his mouth. They all have an agenda and you better know that when you listen to all of them or you're in trouble. The truth, most of the time, is somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.
Re:Anti-terrorist recipe: (Score:4, Insightful)
So why isn't the case with all the existing countries already?
Abide by this and guys like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.. can do anything they want to their own people. After all it's all "internal affairs" - tienanamen square anyone? Do we really have to wait until they fire up the ovens and gas chambers until we act? Or isn't that enough in your opinion? Perhaps we wait until they amass an ustoppable armada and congratulate ourselves on being ethical as they roll across our borders?
Last I checked, nobody invaded Pol Pot or Stalin to stop their human rights abuses. Most military humanitarian missions end up being major disasters that are anything but. Stopping the holocaust was a side effect, not a cause, of World War II. And let me know when those "unstoppable armies" amass at the borders.
Look, I can come up with irrelevant, extreme examples, too! This [chinooksedge.ab.ca] was a "humanitarian mission" to "stop the Arab slavetraders". This act of selfless charity resulted in brutal oppression and ten million dead Congolese.
What if they have no desire to negotiate honestly? Pacification only perpetuates the problems. Look at North Korea and the Non-Proliferation treaty. They used it to aquire nuclear technology and pulled out when they decided they wanted to make bombs. Do you really think Saddam was negotiating in good faith? This only works if you have a carrot AND a stick AND you are ready, willing and able to use the stick AND the other guy knows it.
Last I checked, North Korea started making bombs after George Bush refused to negotiate because you just "can't negotiate" with people like that. I don't know if that's true, but it's hard to imagine how it could have gotten anything worse than it became without negotiating (ie, them now having some nuclear weapons). Nor do I see wholescale military invasion of North Korea feasible at the current time.
Does "predatory" include making a profit? Without the willing concurrance of corrupt local officials who would sell out to ANYBODY, this wouldn't happen.
Hey, I can play this game, too! So, are you saying we should do things like this? [wikipedia.org]
Although I agree that everyone deserves a certain degree of respect owing to fact of their humanity and that we should appreciate differences, there will always be discontent by minorities by virtue of the fact that they ARE minorities. As a white upper middle class guy I can't count the number of ways big and small I've been screwed over by people of all colors. If I was a minority and inclined to shift blame I can see how I might cite racism but in most cases race had nothing to do with it.
So, are you saying that because there will always be some racism, there's no point in trying to stop any racism?
If you want a recipe that works, then how about this? Foster democracy to give everyone a voice and get the people to believe in the democratic process as fair. Have a truly free press to expose the bad people who abuse power in every society. Don't tolerate abuses, no matter where they occur. Recognize that there is no end to human shortcoming and that there is no end point, only the process.
Well, this is easier now, isn't it? Democracy? We'll just "foster" it. And the people, we'll just "get" them to believe in it it. A free press? We'll just "have" it.
And look out, other nations should "be expected" to do this!
I'm sorry, the GP poster had its flaws, but this is about 10 times as vague and therefore about 10 times as
Re:The perception of security (Score:5, Insightful)
Thousands of years of human history would seem to contradict this. Think the Inquisition, the Crusades, countless Protestand vs. Catholic wars in Europe, Hindu/Buddhist conflicts in India, and Sunni/Shiite violence in more recent times. For (far too) many people, their belief in God allows them to dehumanize those who don't share their beliefs, making just about anything fair game.
Re:The perception of security (Score:2, Insightful)
______ Send the terrorists a message at www.defy.org.uk
Re:Appeasers go to hell (Score:1, Insightful)
Ouch. Now, that's darn scary. Read what you have said a couple of times. It sounds awfully familiar.
Swap "the Religion of Peace" for "the West", and you are practically quoting Bin Laden's justification for what he does -- not that I am equating his actions with yours, only the justification attempt.
While you are screening out Muslim immigrants, perhaps you should also screen out Catholics. After all, they could be supporters of the IRA, and might also bomb the Tube.
You ask how high would the percentage of fanatics among Muslim immigrants have to be before stopping them? I have a parallel question: how low would it half to be before your solution is clearly ridiculous? 1% to start? There's no way it is remotely close to that. It's not going to be that high, so your question makes no sense. I'd be surprised if it was 0.001%. We are talking handfuls of people in millions. But for the sake of argument, yeah, 1% would be bad. Something would have to change. But bar all people of a religion? No.
Hell, we don't even know yet if it was Muslim fanatics that did this. For all we know, it was a Timothy McVeigh-style home-grown fanatic or a disgruntled transit employee. But no, you're all set to condemn a whole religion and culture now, and, apparently, the ratio of fanatics to non-fanatics is okay for you when it comes to Irishmen or Montanans, but not Muslims, even when the ratios are probably so extreme they are qualitatively the same -- condemning millions for the sake of a few. You also neglect the many knowledgeable allies that would exist within those millions, and who would work as strongly and effectively against the extremists as the rest of us.
Can't you see that you are promoting the same kind of black-and-white "with us or against us", non-negiable attitude as the fanatics? This is not a way forward. It is becoming the enemy. It is promoting their irrational ways.
I commend you for the strength of your convictions, but I think your approach would make things much worse.
Re:The perception of security (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what I was trying to get at. The additional search on my bag seemed somewhat like a waste of time, but I really only added it because it complemented the rest. But the additional search of my person, even though I hadn't set off the metal detector...that was just plain silly.
And the whole taking off of the shoes is the perfect example of an inconvenience that provides no real security. It isn't even required...as I stated elsewhere I have gone through, wearing the same boots I was wearing that day, with no problem. In civilian clothes.
And yes, there is the occasional Timothy McVeigh (and yes, he was a former soldier...at my former duty station, no less). But the chance of a terrorist actually posing as a soldier in uniform, wife in tow, with a forged military ID is small enough that if he doesn't set off the metal detector, you should probably just let him walk through. But US airport security seems geared instead towards being as obnoxious as possible while providing the minimum amount of security possible.
Sometimes I think that our Department of Homeland Security's entire job is just to do everything they can to keep Americans feeling scared so they'll go along with anything the government wants from them.
Though, of course, that could be just me.
Re:Anti-terrorist recipe: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. This is a good thing. Competition, especially in a world as small as ours is today will allow the best "political units" to become prosperous while bad once to fail. Competition good, monopoly bad.
"Large areas of the world will be controlled by political and/or religious extremists of every stripe, coming to power and enforcing their creed by brutality and murder. Taliban galore!"
This is just flaimbait pure and simple. It is ridiculous and you know it! Are you seriously suggesting if Quebec, Newfoundland, BC, or Alberta separates from Canada we will become "controlled by political and/or religious extremists of every
"2) Abide by this and guys like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.. can do anything they want to their own people. After all it's all "internal affairs" - Tiananmen square anyone?"
That is because IT IS an internal affair. Is it one to be condemned? Absolutely! However, people have to CHOOSE to be free. It cannot and will not be forced upon them. China has its problems. However, the Chinese people have to solve those problems. Neither our guns nor our economic blockades can do anything but make the Chinese people worse off. The same goes for North Korea, Iraq and Troubled countries in Africa.
"If you want a recipe that works, then how about this? Foster democracy to give everyone a voice and get the people to believe in the democratic process as fair."
NO! Foster an attitude of freedom. I understand that many people believe that Democracy == freedom. This is absolutely false! I would even go as far as to say democracy is incompatible with freedom but that is an argument for another time. My point is this: If any nation really wants to be free the will find a way. In fact for people to WANT to be free is the only way for them to be free. This has always been true and always will be. The early US was largely free because those who lived there and then wanted to be. The Swiss are very free because the Swiss people guard their freedom jealously. The rest of the western world is rapidly ceasing to be free because WE NO LONGER WANT TO BE FREE!
"I really wish the world was as Fischer - price / tinker toy simple as you imagine it to be."
It really is fisher price simple. Every nation gets the government it allows itself to have. No nation can be held hostage against the will of its people. After all whose fist will they beat you with but the ones you provide. Who's boots will step on your neck but your own. After all, every dictator only has two arms and two feet. A dictator ignored is rendered harmless.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Appeasers go to hell (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but you are a joke.
You assume that:
Neither of these ludicrous assumptions is supportable. The fact is that while Osama and his friends and colleagues may be big on conquering the world and digging far into the past to justify their belligerance, they use current events to recruit their foot-soldiers. If the amount of justice in the world goes up, the number of radicalizable recruits goes down.
Sounds like you disrespect women almost as much as the homicidal, scraggly-bearded, Koran-thumping fiends that you're so sure are hiding under your bed.
bombs are distastesful (Score:1, Insightful)
And watching western civilization slide down the tubes to outright fascism based on heglian dialectic transnational fascist corporate blood profits at any cost "intel" actions run by a coterie of elite globalist bastards is quite distasteful.
Merely pointing it out might make people uncomfortable (believe me I am not comfortable with it, none whatsoever, zero), but it needs to be done.
History, learn from it or re-live it, only two choices you have.
You would hope people would learn. (Score:3, Insightful)
More useless junk that will defeat the whole point of mass transit. The direct cost of the new equipment will dwarf the total cost of manning the surveillance society and no one being able to get anything done.
There is no protection from terrorism. If somebody really wants to get you, they will.
Just look at Israel. People have been herded into concentration camps, presumed guilty from birth, issued ID cards which they have to present to get out of the ghetto, their trucks have no fenders so they can be searched, walls have been erected, people have even been kept from using roads. I don't even want to imagine the lists of controlled substances. Imagine a farm without fertilizers and diesel fuel. Citizens carry machine guns, and are well trained. Yet, horrible things still happen. As someone else in this tread pointed out, anyplace you have people waiting is a place you can bring 30 lbs of bomb and terrorize everyone. Brute force and paranoia don't work, especially in a place like London where there will be no "us" and "them".
Re:The perception of security (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I"d Rather Be Scanned Than Murdered (Score:1, Insightful)
Do you fucking work for QinetiQ or something? I ask that because there is no valid reason why such a system should be installed. Are you aware how many stations there are in the Underground and how many over-ground stations in the South-East have direct services? This would cost hundreds of millions to install and hundreds of millions more annually to staff and maintain the machines. And for what? To put the bombers on buses (THERE'S A FUCKING NOVEL IDEA), museums, restaurants or even the scanner queues themselves? Hell, if you can't blow up 25 people in a train, blow up the same amount in the huge queue at Covent Garden station; bodies are bodies, right?
The first reply (and subsequent comments) to your post shows your naviete at its fullest. You think the 'psychopathic killer' behind you will let himself get caught and not just detonate the bomb strapped to his chest? The icing on the cake is that you think that even if he detonates in the queue, it's an effective deterrent because 'it's not on the trains'. TAP TAP, McFLY, WHAT GAME ARE YOU WATCHING?
The more I read your bizzare, overly-zealous comments and accusations of 'murderer' to anyone opposed to this the more I think you have something to gain from such a setup. That or you're just a hysterical, easily-led sheep.
Either way, Al-Qaeda loves you for it (and the clear-headed individuals amongst us die a little inside every time you open your cakehole).
North Korea (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a little more complicated than that. Clinton signed several agreements via Sec State Albright that essentually gave North Korea money and goods in exchange for promising to abort a nuclear-arms race in southeast Asia. But he did so without consulting with the Republicans in the Senate, and as a result couldn't get it ratified (remember Congress controls all the money in government). This is almost identical to the failed situation whereby the U.S. Senate refused to pass the treaty concluded after World War I (here again the executive failed to allow minority government to participate in the treaty making process and as a result was unable to get it ratified after it was signed).
Shortly there after Bush comes on the scene. North Korea makes the same offer ("buy us off or we make nukes"), but when Bush refused unilateral negotiations of this type they "suddenly" began developing nuclear weapons.
The reality more likely is that these weapons had existed in some form the entire time. As a number of analysists have pointed out, nuclear development in North Korea is a "fuzzy" matter to timeline. Especially since the U.S. is so heavily dependent on signal intelligence through the monitoring of internal communications - this type of intelligence is faulty if uncorroberated by human intelligence (/insert line blaming CIA Director Deutche). Just like in Iraq, we were hearing all the crosstalk, but the communicating agents are often lying to each other as is frequently the case in countries like Iraq and North Korea where each element is trying to bilk money out of the country and protect their position ("Comrade, we have increased boot production by 100,000 units this month, this memo proves it!").
At any rate, Christopher Hill and our other excellent public servents over at the State Department have as of this week re-engaged North Korea in multilateral talks. Unilateral negotiations can never work because the problem of nuclear proliferation within southeast Asia is not a unilateral one, and Bush was correct in accepting the State Department's advice in rejecting North Korea's request for such.
Re:Hype it up! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why did you assume he was American? So you equate America with misinformation, and assumed he was American? You might consider you are a bigot.
Re:The perception of security (Score:3, Insightful)
This doesn't just mean religions, either. Political groups do it too.
For that matter, could you prove that it wasn't done by a fanatical protestant (of some denomination) to blacken the name of the muslims? That also happens.
Suspect everyone of lying to you about this one, whether they claim to have done it, or not to have done it.
Re:How did the Spanish capitulate? (Score:3, Insightful)
A large majority of the Spanish population never supported the war, not before, not during the war, not afterwards. They threw the government out of office on the first occasion they had. That sounds reasonable. Should they let terrorists influence their opinion and their vote?
Re:The perception of security (Score:2, Insightful)
This is going to cause a line or a "Queue" of many people to gather at a central location at each station which fits the terrorists' needs perfectly.
If it's anything like the MTA you have every homeless person and street vendor carrying a metric ton of crap on wheels right onto the train. Enought to take out the train and probalby anything above it.
No one is going to commit to the resources needed to truely secure public transit unless a lot of people die. With the MTA you dont even have to get on a train. Just open one of the city's thousands of MTA ventilation grates right up from the sidewalk and plant your terrorist aparatust directly on the rails.
It's truely a mess. Public transportation is about as securable as MS Windows.
Re:The perception of security (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see that quote again...
The weasel word here is "truthfully". It's related to the "one true Scotsman" fallacy, but it's also quite correct when you understand it the right way.
No well-adjusted person commits an atrocity just because they feel like it. They need a "good reason" to cover for the fact that they're doing something wrong.
In a Milgram-like situation, for example, they might be following orders or trying to please someone. That's a "good reason". Religion has been used as a "good reason" for all sorts of things, but only because the relevant churces had too much political influence.
Nowadays, the usual excuse is "freedom". What could be better than freedom? What, you don't want public transport officials taking nude x-rays of you? You mustn't like freedom! Because that's why we're doing it. Freedom!
Did that help?
Re:The perception of security (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you support the creation of a 'NRA airlines'? Their motto - 10% discount for open carry. Would you fly on that airline?
Re:The perception of security (Score:2, Insightful)
huh? Where did you get that from?
Re:Here's a real solution (Score:2, Insightful)
That's exactly what's happening now.
You can never achieve democracy under occupation - particularly under occupation of the US, with their latest tricks they've learned from the Israeli army.
Another problem with this response is that it assumes that we have the right to decide when exactly a satisfactory, democratic government has matured, etc, etc. This is none of our business. It's up the Iraqi people, and if you read surveys of Iraqi civilians, the one thing that stands out is that they are 100% united over the issue of the occupation: they want us out, NOW! In fact ALL the candidates for the so-called election were falling over themselves to claim that they would be the ones to bring the occupation to and end and eject the US troups first - clearly because they knew this is what the population wanted. If you are serious about your calls for democracy, you should consider what the people of Iraq want: the opportunity to rebuild their country and their political situation without the constant threat of military aggression.
I 100% agree with you on this one. Blair, Bush and Howard, and a large portion of their political colleges should face war crimes charges.
Re:Here's a real solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Where do you get this trash from? Let me guess ... Fox News, right? OK fine. Lets pretend for a minute that this BS actually happened. It happened thanks to the support that the US gave Saddam for the first 2 decades of his rule. And lets not forget Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and hundres of other secret US torture camps. And the US's practice of extraordinary renditions.
Either your brother or you are liers. The US troups are hated by all but the top 1% of the population: the collaboraters.
A handful of foreigners come from neighbouring countries to try to fight off the invaders. I don't see the problem. They are in a far better moral position that the invaders themselves. And you can't undermine the legitimacy of the Iraqi resistance simply because there are some foreign fighters on their side. Of course if there were no foreign fighters in the country, there wouldn't be a problem, would there?
The Americans have blown up a hell of a lot more civilians that the so-called 'terrorists' could ever hope to. And keep in mind that the Sunnis and Shiites are both united in their opinion of the terrorists targetting Iraqi civilians: they are widely believed to be American Block Opts and Israeli army attacks, that are meant to be blamed on the Iraqi resistance. link [google.com.au]
Re:Here's a real solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Here's a real solution (Score:2, Insightful)
I suggest learning a little more about the world that you are living in, maturing a little, and then looking for a so-called 'serious' discussion.