Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Of course, it's always hard to justify exploratory surveillance, as it's specifically intended to save lives, but by its nature usually suffers many false positives before getting a hit. And the amount of security an individual will accept often is in direct correlation to the losses they've had, or are anticipating. But the alternative... more lives lost, maybe a friend or relative (as those living in Boston, Washington and New York can attest)... usually makes it worth accepting some extra scrutiny.
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How much extra scrutiny?
I live in NYC. I was here during 9/11. I recall the National Guard Armory I walked by every day on my way to work being converted into a relief headquarters. I recall hospital emergency rooms being cleared for a flood of casualties that never arrived, because everyone in the WTC towers either got out with minor injuries or didn't get out at all. I remember every telephone kiosk turning into a shrine, with votive candles and pictures of the missing with pleas for news about them. I remember fire stations festooned with flowers and memorials to all the guys who responded to the WTC fires and didn't come back. I remember National Guardsmen in full kit with loaded M16s patrolling the streets and transit stations. I remember two interviews with FBI agents, as I tried to explain that I lived a block above an area known as "Little India", complete with turbaned Sikhs, that all of the local newsstands were owned and operated by Arabs, that there was a Turkish and an Afghan restaurant within a few block of me, and no, no one around here would
notice a random strange middle-eastern character, because that was half of the folks who lived here.
And we have a government which seems to be trying the use the fear spawned by 9/11 as a platform from which to implement a domestic program that has little to do with 9/11 and will serve little purpose in combating terror, but will serve to help preserve their hold on power.
Extra scrutiny? Fine, but be sure you know what ends it will be turned to and that you trust those doing it. Personally, I'm not sure I trust
any administration with that sort of power.
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Dennis