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This is fear mongering and doesn't represent the real level of risk. Furthermore it doesn't add much to the discussion. Between bag checks and policing at stad
by ch4s3 10y ago
This is fear mongering and doesn't represent the real level of risk. Furthermore it doesn't add much to the discussion.
Between bag checks and policing at stadiums, armored cockpit doors on planes, metal detectors, and descent passport checks backed by good intelligence most opportunities for foreign born terrorists evaporate. And practically it's impossible to stop lone, home grown terrorists when a rented van can be used as a weapon. So why search my phone?
- leereeves 10y agoIt's not my intention to "fear monger". I intend only to point out that when some claim "terrorism isn't a serious problem" they're using statistics collected while we do everything we can to prevent it. No one is ever going to give the terrorists free reign to do what they want for a year so we can collect control data. So we can only speculate about the consequences of not doing all we can to prevent terror attacks.
- throwaway9475 10y agoAccording to the Cato Institute [1], the probability of being involved in a terrorist attack by a foreign-born terrorist from 1975 to 2015 was 0.00003%, or 1/3,609,709. The probability of you being struck by lightning this year is 1/960,000. Terrorism ISN'T a serious problem, compared to homelessness, obesity and other health issues, lack of access to healthcare (see: obesity and other health issues), minority rights (especially for Muslims and Mexican immigrants), labor rights, poor public transportation, etc. It just isn't. God, if people cared 1/10th as much about some of these issues as they did about "being hard on terrorism", imagine how much we could get done. Instead we're groping ten-year-old boys at airports in the name of "safety". Edit: add source. [1] https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa798_1_1.pdf https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa798_...
- leereeves 10y ago> The probability of you being struck by lightning this year is 1/960,000. And most people take precautions to avoid being hit by lightning. A one in a million risk of death is easily enough to inspire action to reduce the risk.
- throwaway9475 10y agoDoes that include inappropriately frisking children because what if they're secretly lightning rods and they're going to kill us all? No. Because that's ridiculous. Just like it's ridiculous in airports.
- leereeves 10y agoTerrorists have been known to place bombs on children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_suicide_bombers_in_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_suicide_bombers_in_the_I...
- tptacek 10y agoYou see where this is going, right? This is exactly why terrorism "works": because the kinds of people who will frisk children "because terrorists have been known to use children" can be goaded into doing just about anything in that fashion. That's the real threat from terrorism: not to our overall physical security, which even at their worst no terrorist group has ever threatened existentially, but to our psychological security --- which they demonstrably have threatened to that degree.
- leereeves 10y agoWhereas some people will object to any security measure on the grounds that "terrorists aren't a threat". But if we actually followed their advice, terrorists would be an enormous threat because we'd take no steps to protect ourselves.
- 10y ago