slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/16/1647231
Change The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. They don't have any feeling for the pain that bombing causes. Citizens of Saudi Arabia want to be able to try to change the political structure of their country. It seems self-destructive that there is never any serious consideration of their complaints. I don't argue for a second that we need to improve our security, but lets figure out the best way to do that. Maybe there are better ways than trampling the Constitution and racial profiling. Point one -- our airport security has been greatly degraded by deregulation. Now that keeps airfares down sure enough, but it is not without a price, is it? Point two -- Customs stopped racial profiling recently and their "hit rate" in fact went up. In conjunction with probable cause racial background is just another piece of information. Point three -- Jets at Andrews were not on ready status even though the Mossad and NSA both had strong indications of a major attack coming. Let's rethink our air defense, even though the next attack will likely be different. Point four -- banning strong encryption will not stop secure terrorist communications, but it will certainly and definitely weaken our personal, banking, and e-commerce security. Point five -- the adminstration isn't even telling Congress what is happening. Giving all of us real information might allow us to participate meaningfully instead of just randomly lashing out at any Arab-looking Americans. An Indian was shot to death today because someone thought him an Arab. Point six -- don't for a minute think that any loss of liberty will be temporary. When the "War on Terrorism" is done (if it ever is) the focus will simply shift to the "War on Drugs" and if we abandon that too, there is the "War on Crime" that will certainly never be over. I feel I have to point out that a very large number of people in this country have been living without any real security for years. If you suddenly feel threatened now, consider what that says about abandoned duties to our own citizens. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. Just like when the Supreme Court overturned the internment of American citizens in World War 2. You must be thinking it's like when the Supreme Court overturned the guilt by association laws during the McCarthy era. We are going to sacrifice very real freedom for very unreal security. This "war", if you can even call it that, will never be over. You can't "defeat" terrorism, like you defeat a world government -- it will always exist. People keep citing WWII as a time when we lost rights and got them back. At this point our "war" is as ephemeral as the "War on Drugs". Don't expect this new "war" to be any shorter or more successful than the latter. The Constitution doesn't have anything to say about how "hard" something has to be before it is protected. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particu larly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Not something so alien that the Constitution should't apply to it. Everyone just assumes that bad laws will evaporate, which is stupid wishful thinking. This one says that you should fight as Allah wants you to fight, with your fellow soldiers, but only as much as necessary. There are certain rules in the Koran that say how and how not to fight (for instance, you can't kill any camels). Basically, it's saying to fight to take back what the invaders have taken from you, but whatever you do, don't attack anyone in a Mosque, unless you were there first and they charged in to attack you. This says that you should stop fighting as soon as they stop. Fighting should be in self-defense, to rid your homeland of invaders and oppressors, but you should never "counter-invade" once you've driven them out. Granted, technically Islam does allow killing, but only in the most restricted instance of self-defense. Perhaps you expect Islam to say that it's much better to have your entire family slaughtered by invaders than to kill the invader? Also, one thing that many people don't realize is that the words "Holy War" do not exist in the Koran. It's just another example of people twisting the truth and making Islam look bad. That statement sounds like unarguable truth, but it's really not. The First Amendment promises the right to free speech, and this speech includes the right to criticize your government. Voting is a good idea, but I'm not aware of any elections in the next few weeks that will have any effects on all these new legislation being proposed. To fight this, we need to be far more proactive than merely voting. A simple question: should it be ok for the government to open any letter in the US Mail without court order? One of the things that makes this country great is our freedom from government interference in our daily lives. One of the terrorists' primary goals is to make us less free. Giving up our free speech and privacy helps them attain that goal. How can telling folks to get involved in government and to call or write your representative and tell them what you think be a bad thing? If you're willing to give up your privacy, then contact your rep. Also, someone above said that the people who died don't care about personal privacy. Look, with a court order, the government can read mail, tap phone lines and confiscate computer equipment. We don't need any more laws giving the government more power over our daily lives. Is this article a bit paranoid and perhaps over-reacting a bit to these possibilities? Maybe, but there is nothing wrong with being vigilant against the intrusions of an over-zealous government, and there is certainly nothing wrong with getting involved, deciding what you really want from government, and telling them. The United States government has so far shown a great deal of restraint, considering the situation. The United States hasn't jumped the gun, and we should be careful not to either. It's good that we're being vigilant (that's one of the requirements of a good citizenry), but we must take care not to make quick judgements based on preconceived notions. It is absolutely logical that the United States would be looking into increased security measures. We are going to war (which should be so clear by this point that I hope I don't need to justify that statement), and it is necessary for our own well being that some kind of security measures be put in place. I'm suprised at how well the government has been handling this, and I hope that, somewhere among all our vigilance and criticism, we can secretly give them a hand for actually taking pretty good care of our personal freedoms. I heard that as "70% of Americans are willing to let terrorists tell us how to run our country". It's all well and good to talk about how the government is doing what's best for us, and that giving up some "minor" freedoms (clue: there is no such thing) is worth it to prevent this sort of thing; Few, if any, of the airport restrictions put in place in the last week would have had any effect on this attack. There is already a movement afoot in Congress to outlaw crypto which doesn't have a back door installed for government use. Are you really so naive as to believe that backdoor won't be used improperly, or be compromised by people outside the government? And if you are that naive, you can't possibly be so naive as to believe that the people who carried out Tuesday's attacks are somehow incapable of writing (or having written) their own crypto software which contains no such back doors. The fact is that there are people all over America who are unscrupulously using these events to further their own agendas, whether it be gas station owners hiking prices through the roof or Falwell and Robertson spouti...
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