Civil Liberties
Soon after 9/11, the Republican Government in the US seized the opportunity to push through some fairly draconian pieces of legislation including "The Patriot Act". Enough has been written about the Patriot Act and I dont have anything new to add to the discussion.
There are three other things, somewhat tangential to the issue that I wished to talk about.
The first one, is quite a shocking one, in which the Government is trying to get book stores to share with them purchase histories of select customers who are suspected of wrong-doing (Primarily terrorism, either the act or planning of it). I recall an advertisement from some time ago where the US boasted about how it's democracy was superior to other countries (Targeted at the Communists), by showing a situation where a person was arrested for reading a certain book. Looks like things have come the full circle now. Several local bookstores (Predominantly the independently owned ones) are getting people to sign a petition opposing this legislation.
The second one is regarding the repeated use of an anecdote by multiple sections of society - Politicans, Law Enforcement and others of how Mohammed Atta, the mastermind of 9/11 was caught speeding but was let go because the policeman did not know that he was wanted in another jurisdiction, because information was not shared between different police districts. Based on this single anecdote, an argument has been made for the increased sharing of police information - Which is certainly necessary and important - But, it will never ever stop a terrorist attack, because Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization will ensure that their hitmen will have clean records and will never speed (like Atta did) - This is not dissimiliar from the ways of working of the Sicilian mafia, which ensured that the button men had clean records so that they would be easy to get off.
And the third one disappoints me a lot - I have always looked to Europe as being a place where civil liberties were always considered of extreme importance, and I was dismayed to see that after the terror attacks last month, 73% of Brits said that they would give up their civil liberties in exchange for protection against terrorist attacks. After making a lot of noise about the Patriot Act and other restrictions on civil liberties in the US, the British seem to have caved in very meekly. Of course, the UK isnt really part of Europe ....
There are three other things, somewhat tangential to the issue that I wished to talk about.
The first one, is quite a shocking one, in which the Government is trying to get book stores to share with them purchase histories of select customers who are suspected of wrong-doing (Primarily terrorism, either the act or planning of it). I recall an advertisement from some time ago where the US boasted about how it's democracy was superior to other countries (Targeted at the Communists), by showing a situation where a person was arrested for reading a certain book. Looks like things have come the full circle now. Several local bookstores (Predominantly the independently owned ones) are getting people to sign a petition opposing this legislation.
The second one is regarding the repeated use of an anecdote by multiple sections of society - Politicans, Law Enforcement and others of how Mohammed Atta, the mastermind of 9/11 was caught speeding but was let go because the policeman did not know that he was wanted in another jurisdiction, because information was not shared between different police districts. Based on this single anecdote, an argument has been made for the increased sharing of police information - Which is certainly necessary and important - But, it will never ever stop a terrorist attack, because Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization will ensure that their hitmen will have clean records and will never speed (like Atta did) - This is not dissimiliar from the ways of working of the Sicilian mafia, which ensured that the button men had clean records so that they would be easy to get off.
And the third one disappoints me a lot - I have always looked to Europe as being a place where civil liberties were always considered of extreme importance, and I was dismayed to see that after the terror attacks last month, 73% of Brits said that they would give up their civil liberties in exchange for protection against terrorist attacks. After making a lot of noise about the Patriot Act and other restrictions on civil liberties in the US, the British seem to have caved in very meekly. Of course, the UK isnt really part of Europe ....
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