| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| Terror or Privacy? |
| 2005-07-29 |
| There's a big difference between excuses and arguments. For example, "I've only seen this part of ‘Roadhouse' 612 times" is an excuse for not mowing the lawn. "I mowed the lawn yesterday" is an argument. Stay with me here, this is an important distinction! In the wake of the London bombings, it seems we're hearing a lot of excuses but not a lot of arguments for why we shouldn't do certain things. Take closed-circuit security cameras in public areas, for instance. I don't like the idea that much myself — it just feels icky — so I'm a bit sympathetic. But at the end of the day, opponents are offering excuses for their recalcitrance, not arguments. Opponents say it's an intrusion into privacy. No, it's not. A policeman can watch you in a public area to his heart's content. That's why they call it a public area. It isn't any more of an infringement if they watch you with an unhidden camera than if they do with it their naked eyeballs. Cameras won't prevent attacks, they claim. Well, who says? Doesn't it become slightly more problematic for a terrorist cell to send one of its stooges to his death if his face can be traced back to the mosque from which he came? Isn't it possible, combined with other intelligence, that authorities might figure out an area's being cased before the actual attack? When that argument fails, they fall back on my own sentiment. "It's just icky," i.e. it will have a "chilling effect." Actually, there's very little evidence of this (has no one at the ACLU been watching any of the "caught on video" TV shows?). But there is a great deal of evidence that decent citizens become a lot more free-wheeling when they think there are no terrorists or criminals around. Besides, is it so outrageous to think that preventing a suicide bombing might come at the expense of the folks who'll have to moderately curb their wild, freewheeling ways on the morning train to work? Or consider New York's new policy of having the cops search the bags of passengers on New York subways. The New York Civil Liberties Union is aghast, calling it an infringement of peoples constitutional rights that will do nothing to prevent terrorism. Well, I suppose it is a very low level infraction, on the order of the tyranny of airport searches. But somehow most people still think they live in a free country when they fly to Tampa. But it's batty to say with certainty that such searches will do nothing to prevent terrorism. Sure, it may not do enough, but it will surely do something. Presumably young Arab terrorists will have a slightly more difficult time carrying backpacks full of bombs, nails and broken glass and blowing them(selves) up at the moment of maximum damage. There's also the complaint that such searches will fall too heavily on certain groups. Look: Outside of Israel and Russia, the number of female suicide bombers is close to zero. Should 50 percent of the scrutiny fall on women? The number of non-Muslim suicide bombers is even closer to zero. So why should police search the handbag of a Norwegian granny holding hands with her granddaughter? To round out the diversity of the statistics? Yeah. I thought that was always the reason. Many say this will "do nothing to stop another Tim McVeigh." This is so cheap. After all, the people arguing that profiling won't catch the McVeighs of the world aren't in favor of searches at all. It's not like their preferred policy is more likely to catch white terrorists. It's just that their preferred policy is less likely to catch non-white terrorists. The upshot of their position is that it's somehow unfair that white Christian terrorists would have a slight advantage over non-white Muslim ones in a generally more secure environment. Nobody says the police are duty-bound to search only South Asians, Muslims and men. If that shifty-eyed Norwegian granny's handbag has wires coming out of it, I say "swarm!" But the most dishonest argument one hears constantly — about security cameras, searches, profiling, etc. — is that they won't stop terrorism. Well, no one thing will stop terrorism. But to say that because no single thing will solve the problem we shouldn't do anything isn't an argument, it's an excuse. And a bad one. A typical lefty concept - since each part of a solution will not solve the problem, by itself, then no combination of pieces can solve it, either. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #3 Bobby - the lack of comments is probably because most of us here agree with the piece. That, and it was posted kind of late. ;-p |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-07-29 23:07 |
| #2 I think the proposed cameras would pose a severe inconvenience to all those people that need privacy and retire immediately to the subway for solitude. The cameras will provide a venue for viewing the talents of some talented guitarists, banjo players and one-person bands. Maybe the benefits will balance the costs. Also the subways might not smell like urine to the same extent that they do now. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2005-07-29 22:42 |
| #1 NOOOOO comments? Ya think I post this crap on this site for fun? I wanna *REACTION* baby! It's allabout MEEEEEEEE! I actually thought this was a pretty good explanation of the difference between privacy and ACLU silliness. Anybody? Awwww.....Goodnight. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-07-29 22:16 |