NotesThe best memorial to the victims of 9/11, in Schneierâs view, would be to forget most of the âlessonsâ of 9/11. âItâs infuriating,â he said, waving my fraudulent boarding pass to indicate the mass of waiting passengers, the humming X-ray machines, the piles of unloaded computers and cell phones on the conveyor belts, the uniformed T.S.A. officers instructing people to remove their shoes and take loose change from their pockets. âWeâre spending billions upon billions of dollars doing thisâand it is almost entirely pointless. Not only is it not done right, but even if it was done right it would be the wrong thing to do.âFeedUnfurl
NotesThe best memorial to the victims of 9/11, in Schneierâs view, would be to forget most of the âlessonsâ of 9/11. âItâs infuriating,â he said, waving my fraudulent boarding pass to indicate the mass of waiting passengers, the humming X-ray machines, the piles of unloaded computers and cell phones on the conveyor belts, the uniformed T.S.A. officers instructing people to remove their shoes and take loose change from their pockets. âWeâre spending billions upon billions of dollars doing thisâand it is almost entirely pointless. Not only is it not done right, but even if it was done right it would be the wrong thing to do.â
Heaps of federal money, endless bureaucracy, and constant travel delays are the most visible by-products of the Transportation Security Administration. Too bad âincreased safetyâ doesnât fit on that list.FeedUnfurl
NotesA ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation of how this decision was made shows that in post-9/11 America, security issues can trump even long-established medical conventions. The final call to deploy the X-ray machines was made not by the FDA, which regulates drugs and medical devices, but by the TSA, an agency whose primary mission is to prevent terrorist attacks. Unfurl
Notes"No amount of statistical evidence, however, will make any difference to those who give themselves over to almost completely irrational fears. Such people, and there are apparently a lot of them in America right now, are in fact real victims of terrorism. They also make possible the current ascendancy of the politics of cowardiceâthe cynical exploitation of fear for political gain. ... It's a remarkable fact that a nation founded, fought for, built by, and transformed through the extraordinary courage of figures such as George Washington, Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. now often seems reduced to a pitiful whimpering giant by a handful of mostly incompetent criminals, whose main weapons consist of scary-sounding Web sites and shoe- and underwear-concealed bombs that fail to detonate."Unfurl
Notes"This now familiar ritual distracts us from the real lesson, which is that we are not helpless. And since regular people will always be first on the scene of terrorist attacks, we should perhaps prioritize the public's antiterrorism capability â above and beyond the fancy technology that will never be foolproof. By definition, terrorism succeeds by making us feel powerless. It is more often a psychological threat than an existential one"Unfurl
Notes"President Obama doesnât need to beat his chest to prove it, and â unlike the last Administration â we are not at war with a tactic (âterrorismâ), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered."Unfurl
Notes"President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a âguy really anxious for warâ in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling IrUnfurl
Notes"There is no such thing as a Homeland. The United States is not Franco's Spain, the National Socialist Party's Germany, or Mussolini's Italy. We do not face imminent destruction of our country or way of life."Unfurl
Notes"We canât afford to keep being this stupid! We have got to get our groove back. We need a president who will unite us around a common purpose, not a common enemy."Unfurl
Notes"As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer,Unfurl
Notes"By taking out three spanners, Graham showed how you could isolate relatively homogeneous chunks of the network, rendering it stupider and less adaptive than before."Unfurl
Notes"We now have a capability of someone to radicalize themselves over the internet" I'm radicalizing right now, in fact. The tubes are chock full of radicalizing agents.Unfurl
Notes"But if the public doesn't know what torture is or is not, as defined by the Bush Administration, how can the public make a decision on whether your policy is right or wrong?"Unfurl
Notes"It's been five years since the anthrax attacks shook our country and took the lives of five Americans. We cannot permit another five to pass before we close this chapter and prepare for the next one."Unfurl
Notes"Afterward, Tenet looked back on the meeting with Rice as a tremendous lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt the Sept. 11 attacks. Rice could have gotten through to Bush on the threat, but she just didn't get it in time, Tenet thought."Unfurl
Notes"Our goal in this report is to rise to Mr. Clintonâs challenge, and assess the record of Mr. Bushâs efforts against al Qaeda in his first eight months in office."FeedUnfurl
Notes"A memo received by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shortly after becoming National Security Advisor in 2001 directly contradicts statements she made to reporters yesterday, RAW STORY has learned."Unfurl
Notes"But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures."Unfurl
Notes"Ground zero hero Major Mike McCormack says he was deliberately targeted for helping release documents on EPA government cover-up, says 75% of police, firemen believe 9/11 cover-up"Unfurl
Notes"Matt Lauer went after Bush over his secret prisons and the use of torture on the captured terrorists via The Today Show this morning. He was uncommonly strong and didnât back down when Bush gave his pet answer."FeedUnfurl
Notes"This is a surreal story about a guy who accidentally drops his iPod into an airplane toilet, prompting a full-scale terror alert. Overreaction at its worst."Unfurl
Notes"Whenever Ann is faced with the reality that Osama hasnât been caught yet by this administrationâwellâPoor Ann. Kirsten Powers actually responds to Coulterâs ridiculous line that Afghanistan is going swimmingly and brings up the fact that Osama isFeedUnfurl
Notes"Despite all the ominous warnings of wily terrorists and imminent attacks, there has been neither a successful strike nor a close call in the United States since 9/11. The reasonable -- but rarely heard -- explanation is that there are no terrorists withiFeedUnfurl
Notes"You must decide for yourself that you will not let them deter you from your path. If they rise against you, you must be prepared to meet them. Prepared to be ruthless in defense of what you love. It may mean that you will die. We all do someday."Unfurl
Notes"But how afraid should Americans be of terrorist attacks? Not very, as some quick comparisons with other risks that we regularly run in our daily lives indicate."Unfurl
Notes"To exploit a very real terror threat that could have led to major casualties, and to even indirectly implicate Americans who were exercising their democratic right by going to the polls and making a choice borders on the criminal, to say nothing of the iUnfurl
Notes"The point of terrorism is to create terror, and by cynically convincing us that our very countries are at risk from terrorism, our politicians have delivered utter victory to the terrorists: we are terrified."Unfurl
Notes"The conservative intelligentsia in America have also shifted dramatically from a conservatism that protects the individual from government towards a conservatism that wants to impose democracy abroad and enforce morality at home."Unfurl
Notes"It was a very unpleasant look at the twisted, ugly innards of the soul of the Republican party. Suddenly I knew what it must be like to be Ann Coulter's gynecologist."Unfurl
Notes"The shift in terms comes at a time when the US public is increasingly pessimistic about the war in Iraq - and sceptical about its links to the fight against terrorism."Unfurl
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