#terror

The best memorial to the victims of 9/11, in Schneier’s view, would be to forget most of the “lessons” of 9/11. “It’s infuriating,” 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. “We’re spending billions upon billions of dollars doing this—and 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.”

A 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.

"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 cowardice—the 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."

"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 — 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"

"President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), 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."

"America 2006, summed up in five words: Pie is not a liquid."

"President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Ir

"Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer? Because it's a movie-plot threat."

"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."

I predict airports will soon demand childbirth at security checkpoint to prove it's a real belly.

"We can’t 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."

"But look now what we have lost. Now when a bad guy crosses our threshhold, America becomes a pants-piddling mess."

"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,

"Could it be that the FAA ban on liquids is really a plot to rid the country of homeless people, through the use of explosive liquids?"

"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."

From a comment: "Ignore then, laugh at them, try to understand them, but for gods sake do not give them a victory."

"Refuse to be terrorized, people!"

"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.

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"Our goal in this report is to rise to Mr. Clinton’s challenge, and assess the record of Mr. Bush’s efforts against al Qaeda in his first eight months in office."

"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."

"But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures."

"The claim that Clinton paid insufficient attention to terrorism was one that virtually no Republicans made during the Clinton presidency."

"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"

"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 didn’t back down when Bush gave his pet answer."

"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."

"Whenever Ann is faced with the reality that Osama hasn’t been caught yet by this administration–well–Poor Ann. Kirsten Powers actually responds to Coulter’s ridiculous line that Afghanistan is going swimmingly and brings up the fact that Osama is

"The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act."

"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 withi

"This is a victory for terrorists."

"I am sick of living under the shadow of media-driven fear of terrorism."

"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."

"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."

"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 i

"Quick, do whatever we tell you, and believe whatever we tell you, or YOU WILL BE KILLED BY BROWN PEOPLE!! PUT DOWN THAT SIPPY CUP!!"

"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."

"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."

"Granting amnesty to the guy who’s been washing dishes at your favorite neighborhood restaurant for the past 7 years: Unthinkable."

"In a major disaster, it might be several days before vital services are restored."

"Terrorism has always been rare, and for all we've heard about 9/11 changing the world, it's still rare."

"Agents misinterpret costume from University of Georgia Methodist event"

"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."

"Are we agreeing, then, to give the king unfettered privilege to defy the law forever?"

"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."

And so, we make an enemy of the entire Islamic culture for a few thousand years.

"Iraq was not a haven for international terrorism before we invaded it."

' "Well, sir, that's a switchblade style, and that's a prohibited item,'' Mr. Rau said he was told. ''We're going to have to confiscate that.'' ' The terrorists have succeeded in making us look like morons, yet again.

"When the enemy can come apart at will, we have to stick together."

A history of the last few years in quotes.

"It is not known exactly how Kennedy became mixed up in a national terrorist database - whether by accident, or as a practical joke, or as a Republican dirty trick to keep him out of Boston during the Democratic National Convention."