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Showing messages 1 through 6 of 6.

• Why is this here?
  2004-02-15 10:06:59  iggster [Reply | View]
  
  
  
  Isn't this a weblog about your insites on technology? Why am I getting this tripe here?
  "Bruce Schneier has written an elegant argument against our country's slide towards a police state. Agree or disagree with his politics, you should read this piece. "
  
  Start a political site. Or, if not:
  Tried living in another country for a few years and understand their rights and laws? Wanna think about the military state you so loathe that could exist with some more successful terrorist attacks in the U.S.? You are living in total dream land. As Roy Batty said in Blade Runner: "Wake up; it's time to die". With you jokers in any arena of influence, it would happen. I think Rush Limbaugh said it best: "Democrats in power are dangerous; Democrats out of power are comical".

• the "game" of terrorism
  2004-02-05 17:08:17  ray_shp [Reply | View]
  
  

  After reading Bruce's article it occurs to me that he is making the same mistake which the CIA made before 9/11 -- that there can be a steady-state condition with terrorism. By steady-state I mean a situation where one can establish a boundary between "them and us" which is capable of being held in balance through policies, agreements or by war.

  
  
  

  Although Israel arguably has the most experience in dealing with terrorist infractions they have also found it impossible to maintain a boundary. For the reasons I state below, a boundary is not possible.

  
  
  

  The cold-war and MAD worked only because the authority to release nuclear weapons rested with very few individuals. The "game", although on a large scale with the potential for world destruction, was a very small one with very few players. Nash's strategy could thus be fulfilled -- Russia and America both got a brunette and the blond was left out in the cold.

  
  
  

  The "game" of terrorism has many more players who act independently of, or in concert with, overlying authority. It is by nature unpredictable, which is, in fact, it's major strength for the terrorist player in the game. There can never be an assured balance (or boundary) because the number of players is too large and their actions too unpredictable.

  
  
  

  In this game America can never go back to its time of safety, freedom, liberty, and justice. What Bruce proposes only plays into a strength of the terrorist's game. Trade-offs, negotiations, land transfers, pay-offs, prisoner exchanges can only have one outcome -- failure which adds to the gains made by terrorists.

  
  
  

  Unfortunately America still doesn't get it. Their belief in their old cold-war game rules forces them to identify a major player as an opponent. Saddam Hussein, Yassar Arafat, Ariel Sharon can not determine or control how their people will act. Elevating them to the status of an opponent will not buy the safety or peace which they seek.

  
  
  

  I'd like to remind everyone that Big Brother has never existed, and never will exist. Yes, we have authorities who watch us and can exceed the guarantees of our liberties. But I urge you to get over it, you're not in the old game any more and trying to remain there will only assure that you'll lose. America can no longer afford to believe it is in a position of relative safety, it is, in fact, in a state of declared war and must act accordingly.

  
  
  

  That said, I agree in principal with Bruce's viewpoint. It is people like him, who pay attention to these details, that will be needed to return America to a peaceful society again. I hope that those in authority in America will take notice of him and plan to use his skills for future good.

  
  
  

  For the record, I'm just a programmer from Canada with five sons and daughters who understands something about game theory and war games. I am not a war-monging, right-wing, pseudo-Nazi who wants war at any cost.

• FUD
  2004-02-02 13:51:34  DogsLunch [Reply | View]
  
  
  When I listen to an ostensibly sane person worry over the right of a terrorist to due process, I just have to shake my head.
  
  Allow me offer my observations of travel to foreign countries from the perspective of an American. In 1998 I traveled to Japan where I was, *gasp*, FINGERPRINTED at immigration. In 2000 I traveled to Italy where I was put through a bomb-sniffing device and had my luggage tested with chemical swabs, all under the watchful gaze of a security guard with a submachine gun. Hell, when I went to Canada in August of 2001 they searched my car and personal effects for several hours and phoned the party I was going to meet in Ontario! So the U.S. is really just acclimatizing to the security conditions a lot of the world has had in place for all I know decades.
  
  Furthermore, it cracks me up that everyone's wringing their hands over civil liberties now, when a few years ago the BATF under the Clinton regime (don't like the sound of those two words together, do you?) wanted to create a database of all gun owners. Historically, registration begets confiscation (e.g., Canada) In a *true* police state (e.g., NAZI Germany), only the police have guns...

• Back to Basics
  2004-02-02 02:42:07  simon_hibbs [Reply | View]
  
  
  I'm a British Citizen living in the UK, but since I work in IT I read a lot of US news sources and forums such as O'Reilly. I'm pretty appaled at the steps the Bush government is taking in the name of 'Homeland Security'. The UK has been a terror target for decades. I've travelled through London by train on the same day that a main line train station was bombed by the IRA (in the 1980s) and my office buliding is 400m from the site of another IRA bombing.
  
  While our counter-terrorism defences aren't perfect (as proved by said bomb), ther're certainly world class. I've lost count of the number of terrorists cought in the UK since 9/11, many of them in the final stages of executing a terror attack. I don't feel invulnerable, but I have huge confidence in the competence of my protectors.
  
  I don't feel anything like the same confidence when visiting the US. The Homeland Security initiative strikes me as a panick move, it's a high profile initiative that creates the illusion of doign something about the problem, but it seems very misguided. The last thing an integrated security system needs is another huge mass of bureaucracy. Fancy fingerprinting schemes at airports, and other such high-tech 'solutions' are a missguided distraction. If a man can wlak through an airport with bullets in his pocket, despite a security regime specificaly designed to prevent precisely that, how can anyone have confidence in these new systems?
  
  What you do need is tighter links between existing security services and rock-solid basic police and inteligence work. It's not sexy, and it's not very visible to the public, and it's goign to take time during which you're still vulnerable, but it's what realy matters.
  
  Simon Hibbs
  

• overreaction
  2004-02-02 01:15:28  jwenting [Reply | View]
  
  
  The author makes valid points that there need to be safeguards against overreaction (which is indeed taking place).
  
  Where he is wrong is in effectively claiming that there was no problem with the internal security of the USA against outside threats before September 2001.
  There was in fact a huge problem in that basically anyone could enter the country for whatever reasons without being questioned.
  While in theory a good thing (it should be possible to have such a system worldwide, and I would love to see that come into being) in practice there are people that are envious of the US to the point of wanting to harm the US seriously.
  Such people making use of the open society the US has were what made the horrors of 11/09/2001 possible.
  
  IMO a country protecting its borders by careful screening of foreigners against profiles of people who you do not want to enter is sadly a necessity.
  Once such a system is in place (and it is starting to be implemented) internal security measures can once again be relaxed now that the outside borders are secure once more.
  
  Because of the extreme lack of police presence in the US prior to September 2001 just about anything introduced that increases that presence will be seen initially as curbing personal freedoms.
  But as the author also states a complete lack of government authority (in the form of police) means a total anarchic society where only the one with the biggest gun survives. I think most Americans would not want that either.
  
  The US security and police aparatus are therefore in flux, they are desperately seeking a new ballance between necessary means to protect the citizens and the increase in monitoring and police powers that that protection brings along.
  IMO it will be several years yet before a ballance is struck and only time will tell what that ballance will be.
  

• Non American response
  2004-02-01 05:40:30  CWL [Reply | View]
  
  
  I am in agreement with Bruce Schneiers article. In the United Kingdom, Great Britain - however it is familiar to you - we are also selling off liberties we once were proud of and claiming it is a necessary loss in the name of security and safety.
  
  I feel as though I am being lied to, fundamentally. I watched with horror as the events unfurled on September 11. A friend worked in the 2nd tower and I felt a personal involvement. He was OK and is still working in New York. The huge anger and sympathy for the US after the event was perhaps your greatest ally. It moved even cynical Middle East leaders to mourn for your citizens and the other nationals killed and injured that day. However, the response has destroyed any of that sentiment. The very thing we aimed to combat is now strengthened - and for what? For political manipulation.
  
  History will judge the peoples and politicians involved in our current times. I doubt very many will be left with great stature or esteem. A huge human tragedy with the potential to reach out for partners to overcome an evil has been met with opportunistic manipulation by politicians and their business/organisational interests.
  
  They are not truly concerned with us but with their own agenda. Witness Iraq. Regime change was always a political issue for the current administration and the ability to shoehorn it into the anti-terrorist tray allowed it to take on some form of urgency. Saddams regime could have been neutered and removed without the horrendous damage to the World and UN community it has left behind it.
  
  I personally now do not want to travel to the US - I feel that it is now a dangerous place. Not simply because of the Sept 11 attacks but because the current regime is almost challenging people to a fight like some Wild West macho gunslinger. And as a foreign resident - who is concerned for my liberties in your country - imagine how US residents would feel if we said we were secretly going to arrest you if you travelled to London - and have to provide no reason why we did it?