links.lmorchard.com - #terror

Does Airport Security Really Make Us Safer? | Culture | Vanity Fair

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 01:39:25 +0000

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.”

Tags: #911 #flight #security #terror #terrorism #travel

U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners - ProPublica

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:33:03 +0000

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.

Tags: #airport #cancer #health #radiation #terror #terrorism #travel #tsa

Undressing the Terror Threat - WSJ.com

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 05:04:10 +0000

"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."

Tags: #america #cowardice #fear #politics #risk #security #terror #terrorism

What Airline Passengers Can Learn - TIME

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:02:10 +0000

"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"

Tags: #helplessness #homelandsecurity #security #terror #terrorism #travel

The Same Old Washington Blame Game | The White House

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:01:35 +0000

"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."

Tags: #obama #politics #terror #terrorism

The Raw Story | Obama fires back at Cheney on 60 Minutes

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:29:56 +0000

Tags: #cheney #guantanamo #obama #terror #terrorism

Update: Pie apparently a threat to security after all » Upgrade: Travel Better

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:05:11 +0000

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

Tags: #pie #terror #travel

President Bush regrets his legacy as man who wanted war - Times Online

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:07:15 +0000

"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

Tags: #assholes #bush #iraq #politics #terror #war #youlose

Bruce Schneier: Are photographers really a threat? | Technology | The Guardian

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 01:43:28 +0000

"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."

Tags: #photography #terror #terrorism

There's No Such Thing as the Homeland | Threat Level from Wired.com

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:56:41 +0000

"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."

Tags: #america #bush #homeland #terror #usa

FBI issues prosthetic pregnant belly bomb alert | The Register

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:34:45 +0000

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

Tags: #dhs #fbi #terror #tsa

9/11 is Over

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:28:41 +0000

"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."

Tags: #911 #america #bush #fear #terror #war

Bed-wetter Nation | Campaign for America's Future

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:53:00 +0000

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

Tags: #ahmadinejad #america #conservatives #fear #iran #neocons #terror

The Daily Dish: "Verschärfte Vernehmung"

Thu, 31 May 2007 16:34:28 +0000

"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,

Tags: #bush #nazis #terror #torture #war

Boing Boing: TSA donates potentially explosive liquids to homeless

Sun, 13 May 2007 19:22:12 +0000

"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?"

Tags: #911 #homeless #terror #travel #tsa