NotesThe reason we donât see exploding battery attacks more often is not because itâs technically hard, itâs because the erosion of public trust in everyday things isnât worth it. The current discourse around the potential reach of such explosive devices is clouded by the assumption that itâs technically difficult to implement and thus unlikely to find its way to our front door.That assumption is wrong. It is both surprisingly easy to do, and could be nearly impossible to detect. After I read about the attack, it took half an hour to combine fairly common supply chain knowledge with Wikipedia queries to propose the mechanism detailed below.FeedEmbedUnfurl
Notes Scott Shane and Eric Schmitt in The New York Times dig deeper into yesterday's news of a new would-be Al Qaeda underwear bomber, "dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner." He was a double agent for the CIA who infiltrated Al Qaeda, and "volunteered for the suicide mission." He also provided intelligence that led to Sunday's drone strike killing a USS Cole bombing suspect. Snip: FeedUnfurl
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
NotesYes, yes. All these plots are "unrelated." We can't possibly blame them on a right-wing ideology that revels in paranoid claims about the future of the country and how extraordinary measures are required to save it from whatever the latest bogeyman is (usually, revolving around some not-conservative figure being the ideological equivalent of Stalin, for reasons that are, shall we say, never well explained), because that would be mean. We can't blame the authors and promoters of far-right fantasias (the men in this story were inspired by a fictional novel about murdering government workers fer freedomz, etc) because that would be "persecuting" them or some such, and heaven knows the right wing feels "persecuted" enough already. And heaven forfend anyone point out how very, very often these stories have a Fox News connection or find that the alleged terrorist had written long, rambling messages on some well-known conservative blog.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""Do you know why Israelis are so calm? We have brutal terror attacks on our civilians and still, life in Israel is pretty good. The reason is that people trust their defence forces, their police, their response teams and the security agencies. They know they're doing a good job. You can't say the same thing about Americans and Canadians. They don't trust anybody," Sela said. "But they say, 'So far, so good'. Then if something happens, all hell breaks loose and you've spent eight hours in an airport. Which is ridiculous. Not justifiable"FeedUnfurl
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"Athens failed in Syracuse â and doomed their democracy â not because they fought in the wrong place and at the wrong time, but because they werenât ruthless enough."Unfurl
Notes"I have (I think) a strong intellectual grasp of the roots of suicide terrorism, something about playing the game gave me an "aha" moment that I'd never had before: an ability to feel, in whatever tiny fashion, the strategic logic and emotional calculus bUnfurl
Notes"Collectively, we need to start thinking about what the post-post-9/11 world looks like, a world where terrorism will certainly still exist. It can either be a world of arm-waving fear, or a world of informed resolve"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"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"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"I have spoken to about a dozen agents, and they all roll their eyes and indicate disgust with the man-years of wasted effort being put into physically examining NSA "leads." "Unfurl
Notes"Because I trust Fox News, and if Fox News is insinuating that somehow the terrorists have enlisted the help of alien space ships to attack the United States of America, I believe them."Unfurl
Notes"In the weeks after 9/11, while America and the world were grieving, Bush built a legal rationale for a dictatorship. Then he immediately started using it to avoid the law."Unfurl
Notes"Both have issued apologies Fox in a one-line statement to the Los Angeles Times and Loftus in an e-mail to the family after being contacted by the newspaper. The Voricks say they have yet to see or hear a correction."Unfurl
Notes"There is a massive failure of leadership in the U.S. and U.K. When our people die, what we get from blowhards Bush and Blair is nothing but therapy..."Unfurl
Turning Everyday Gadgets into Bombs is a Bad Idea « bunnie's blog
Underwear Bomber 2.0 was CIA double agent - Boing Boing
Does Airport Security Really Make Us Safer? | Culture | Vanity Fair
U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners - ProPublica
thestar.com iPhone : The 'Israelification' of airports: High security, little bother
The Same Old Washington Blame Game | The White House
Homeland Security: Rethinking What Works : NPR
Daily Kos: A Post-Bush Mentality
Crooks and Liars ✠Keith Olbermann takes a âlook backâ at Bushâs first months in office leading up to 9/11
Foreign Affairs - Is There Still a Terrorist Threat? - John Mueller