11 ms·

Bruce Schneier: Refuse to be terrorized

152 points by iwr 16y ago

makecheck 16y ago
From 2006, and sadly so; this advice should have been followed back in 2002, and been the reality by 2010. Schneier is well known, but somehow still isn't being heard by the right ears...how can we help change that?
- cdavid 16y ago
  What seems interesting to me as a European is that this type of reactions happened mostly in the US. Terror attacks have happened for a long time in Europe (red brigades, IRA, algerian terror cells, etc...), and the reaction has been quite different to say the least. Granted, the amount of damages has been different (nothing near 9/11 has ever happened on European soil), but I don't think that explains it. This is even more incomprehensible to me because I have always considered American citizens to be more attached to civil liberties and individual freedom than most Europens.
  - SkyMarshal 16y ago
    Many of us in the US who are attached to civil liberties and individual freedom are taking notice. From civil liberties to software patents, maybe Europe isn't what Rush Limbaugh says it is. Wonder of wonders.
  - dfghjkhgbfd 16y ago
    Events in Northern Ireland have killed approx 3600 in the last 40years - not too far off.
    - MikeCapone 16y ago
      The timeframe probably makes the psychological impact different (over 40 years vs. in one day), though.
      - dfghjkhgbfd 16y ago
        Yes two generations of train stations closed because of bomb scares, of weekly news reports of a new bomb blast.
        MikeCapone 16y ago
        "Different" means exactly that. I'm not downplaying it, just saying that it's not as easy to compare as saying that the number of deaths is similar.
    - arethuza 16y ago
      Personally I think the lesson to be learned from Northern Ireland is to avoid demonizing terrorists - it really doesn't achieve anything. Try and understand what it motivating them and you might stand a chance of working things out.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    I think perhaps you don't appreciate the degree of erosion of civil liberties that has come with the reactions of most European governments to modern terrorism. Most European governments took measures more drastic than the US. The things that the police in Britain are allowed to do in the name of "fighting terrorism" are extreme, for example.
    - chunkyslink 16y ago
      > The things that the police in Britain are allowed to do in the name of "fighting terrorism" are extreme, for example. Can you give an example of something the British police can do that the American counterparts can't ?
      - marklabedz 16y ago
        Section 44 of the Terrorism Act (Especially as it relates to photographers: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-01-23/world/photography.protest_1_terrorism-laws-british-police-searched?_s=PM:WORLD http://articles.cnn.com/2010-01-23/world/photography.protest...)
  - mechanical_fish 16y ago
    I have always considered American citizens to be more attached to civil liberties and individual freedom than most Europeans. Perhaps, but still... it's complicated. Ask an Irish-American in the 1800s, a black American in 1840 or 1930, or a Japanese-American in 1944: http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/19/actor-george-takei-remembers-his-internment/ http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/19/actor-george-takei-rememb... From the earliest days of the USA, it has taken a lot of fighting to keep the ideals alive in practice as well as on paper.
    - InclinedPlane 16y ago
      Ask a Jewish Frenchman in 1942, an Indian Briton in 1920, or 5th generation Korean immigrants to Japan today. America may have struggled to keep its ideals alive in practice, but at least it has such ideals. And it has been far more successful at living up to them than just about any other country in history. We should celebrate that even as we strive for further improvement (current anti-immigration sentiment in America is far too prevalent, for example).
      - jerf 16y ago
        Current anti-illegal-immigration sentiment is pretty prevalent. If there's actually a massive anti-immigrant sentiment I haven't really noticed it much. I do notice a lot of people trying their hardest to conflate the two, though.
        pyre 16y ago
        Well, there are a lot of people that think that we should prevent Chinese immigrants...
        mechanical_fish 16y ago
        If there's actually a massive anti-immigrant sentiment I haven't really noticed it much. I've watched several highly-educated friends try to get green cards, jumping through hoops all the way. The fact that emigrating to the USA has been deliberately engineered to be very difficult is a relatively polite, bureaucratic, impersonal form of anti-immigrant sentiment, but it is definitely real.
  - maxer 16y ago
    I assume you didnt live in northern ireland in the 70s/80s, where stop and searches where normal way of life and where you could see British soldiers patrolling the streets daily
  - philwelch 16y ago
    Every culture that's experienced terrorism has different scars. The US was attacked using airliners; hence airliners are a target of paranoia. The IRA was fond of planting bombs in public trash cans ("rubbish bins" in the British vernacular); the British pull all the trash cans off the street and then invent a bomb-proof rubbish bin (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5051419.ece http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5051419.ece)
izendejas 16y ago
We're not really afraid/terrorized. We only require that leaders protect us and some are willing to forgo more liberties than others. If we were terrorized, we would not fly by the millions... every day! I won't get into the civil liberties topic. There are trade-offs we will all never agree on. One of those is security v. liberties. So everyone just tug their way and we'll see where we end up.
- grandalf 16y ago
  Your view attributes much rationality to how people are acting. My view of it is that humans routinely miscalculate risk and behave quite irrationally from a risk-minimization perspective. At the same time, a public that is largely apathetic about politics in general is easily moved by fear-mongering, us-vs-them rhetoric, etc. -- like any fad, terrorism simply captures the imagination of some people. Attempts to stop the overreaction suffer from the typical challenge: the majority who don't care about terrorism care about the issue less than the vocal minority for whom it's a very big (as in scary or as in profitable) deal. Also, due to the government's habit of paying for terrorism prevention, the typical corruption/overspending problems happen far more easily than they would in a decentralized system. And, due to the political nature of terrorism prevention, our leaders work to minimize the extent to which they would likely be blamed for an attack rather than working to make us feel/be safer.
  - izendejas 16y ago
    Funny, I was going to start and end my post with similar statements. My first statement was a quote "a person is smart but people are stupid" (due to herd behavior). And I was going to end with the fact that many leaders care more about maintaining their seats than losing any lives on their watch and so are ready scare the minority who actually are not afraid of terrorism much more than they are about religions, people and ways of life they ignore (most of the author's examples are in fact evidence of this). But I edited my post because statistically the majority of us are not afraid. We care, and definitely vote for leaders who refuse to terrorize us a la Cheney, but we know we have to adapt our way of life to minimize the risks--which can be confused with fear, but is actually the rational thing to do, since we're dealing with irrational people. I was too succinct, but yes the majority needs to do a better job of controlling the message we send to terrorists--that I should have conceded.
sliverstorm 16y ago
"a Port of Seattle terminal was evacuated because a couple of dogs gave a false alarm for explosives" That doesn't sound like living in terror, that sounds like good sense. IIRC dogs are pretty reliable (false alarms are rare) and one terminal isn't the whole airport.
- gcheong 16y ago
  I wonder why, instead of X-rays and pat-downs they don't just use dogs. I would trust that a dog would be able to detect a bomb on a person much more readily than a person who's eyes are glazed over after looking at the nth person's scan or pat-down. And they gladly work for just love and kibble. Of course the TSA claims they are able to detect weapons such as guns and knives too, but I believe metal detectors are probably just as effective along with secure cockpits, air marshals on-board, and a public ready to fight back if necessary. Am I missing something about dogs that would make this impractical?
  - lokijuhygtfrd 16y ago
    >Am I missing something about dogs ? Puppy breeders don't make million $ campaign contributions or hire TSA officials as 'advisers'
    - pessimizer 16y ago
      More specifically, Michael Chertoff isn't a puppy breeder.
    - bmalicoat 16y ago
      Also some people are terrified of dogs so having one sniff over them would be worse than being groped. Not that the TSA cares about feelings or anything though.
      - dfghjkhgbfd 16y ago
        Thats why airport sniffer dogs are often beagles rather than the German Sheppard/Bloodhounds used for cargo. Beagles are small cute and non-threatening, and they don't have to climb all over you to smell explosives. By contrast the police here got German Sheppards to sniff for drugs on suspects on the street. It turns out the police didn't actually buy trained sniffer dogs - they just wanted something big and fierce looking to 'encourage' people to cooperate. Not that the TSA would consider any such thing.
wakawana 16y ago
No comments allowed on the post? "Afraid" to be proven wrong that we are all being terrorized? Ironic.
garazy 16y ago
I agree with the coverage of events by the press/media encourage people to be terrorized. If the media get a story that will sell papers / get eye balls watching TV screens they will run with it until the cows come home (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/382900.html http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/382900.html).
jbyers 16y ago
(2006)
ajays 16y ago
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I remember reading about airliners being blown up: Air India Flight 182, Pan Am 103, etc. etc. Red Brigade, PFLP, IRA, etc. etc. So many planes were hijacked, blown up, or even shot down (Korean Air by the Soviets). And yet we didn't start cowering in terror like we do today. Here's a quick link; just read it and see how safe we've been since the late 90s: http://www.historycentral.com/Terrorhistory.html http://www.historycentral.com/Terrorhistory.html We were safe without any groping or x-raying or taking off our shoes and throwing away our bottles of baby's milk. What happened? How did we become a nation of wimps??
- angrycoder 16y ago
  What happened? Our leaders pursued a policy of fear and vengeance and the public ate it up like starving dogs.
  - jonursenbach 16y ago
    The shock of 9/11 will do that to a person, heh.
aneth 16y ago
"Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed." Yes, the terrorists would have failed. Then they would exploit our continued lack of vigilance and try again and again until we were scared and started to crack down. These arguments that we should not respond to terrorism are a bunch of lovey dove hopeful hogwash. Terrorists aren't going to give up because we ignored their destructive acts. They will keep blowing more shit up until they are dead or get the attention they seek.
- wdewind 16y ago
  "This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots." http://www.schneier.com/essay-038.html http://www.schneier.com/essay-038.html At least read the next paragraph, dude.

152 points by iwr 16y ago

From 2006, and sadly so; this advice should have been followed back in 2002, and been the reality by 2010. Schneier is well known, but somehow still isn't being heard by the right ears...how can we help change that?

cdavid 16y ago
What seems interesting to me as a European is that this type of reactions happened mostly in the US. Terror attacks have happened for a long time in Europe (red brigades, IRA, algerian terror cells, etc...), and the reaction has been quite different to say the least. Granted, the amount of damages has been different (nothing near 9/11 has ever happened on European soil), but I don't think that explains it. This is even more incomprehensible to me because I have always considered American citizens to be more attached to civil liberties and individual freedom than most Europens.
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  Many of us in the US who are attached to civil liberties and individual freedom are taking notice. From civil liberties to software patents, maybe Europe isn't what Rush Limbaugh says it is. Wonder of wonders.
- dfghjkhgbfd 16y ago
  Events in Northern Ireland have killed approx 3600 in the last 40years - not too far off.
  - MikeCapone 16y ago
    The timeframe probably makes the psychological impact different (over 40 years vs. in one day), though.
    - dfghjkhgbfd 16y ago
      Yes two generations of train stations closed because of bomb scares, of weekly news reports of a new bomb blast.
      - MikeCapone 16y ago
        "Different" means exactly that. I'm not downplaying it, just saying that it's not as easy to compare as saying that the number of deaths is similar.
  - arethuza 16y ago
    Personally I think the lesson to be learned from Northern Ireland is to avoid demonizing terrorists - it really doesn't achieve anything. Try and understand what it motivating them and you might stand a chance of working things out.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  I think perhaps you don't appreciate the degree of erosion of civil liberties that has come with the reactions of most European governments to modern terrorism. Most European governments took measures more drastic than the US. The things that the police in Britain are allowed to do in the name of "fighting terrorism" are extreme, for example.
  - chunkyslink 16y ago
    > The things that the police in Britain are allowed to do in the name of "fighting terrorism" are extreme, for example. Can you give an example of something the British police can do that the American counterparts can't ?
    - marklabedz 16y ago
      Section 44 of the Terrorism Act (Especially as it relates to photographers: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-01-23/world/photography.protest_1_terrorism-laws-british-police-searched?_s=PM:WORLD http://articles.cnn.com/2010-01-23/world/photography.protest...)
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  I have always considered American citizens to be more attached to civil liberties and individual freedom than most Europeans. Perhaps, but still... it's complicated. Ask an Irish-American in the 1800s, a black American in 1840 or 1930, or a Japanese-American in 1944: http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/19/actor-george-takei-remembers-his-internment/ http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/19/actor-george-takei-rememb... From the earliest days of the USA, it has taken a lot of fighting to keep the ideals alive in practice as well as on paper.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    Ask a Jewish Frenchman in 1942, an Indian Briton in 1920, or 5th generation Korean immigrants to Japan today. America may have struggled to keep its ideals alive in practice, but at least it has such ideals. And it has been far more successful at living up to them than just about any other country in history. We should celebrate that even as we strive for further improvement (current anti-immigration sentiment in America is far too prevalent, for example).
    - jerf 16y ago
      Current anti-illegal-immigration sentiment is pretty prevalent. If there's actually a massive anti-immigrant sentiment I haven't really noticed it much. I do notice a lot of people trying their hardest to conflate the two, though.
      - pyre 16y ago
        Well, there are a lot of people that think that we should prevent Chinese immigrants...
      - mechanical_fish 16y ago
        If there's actually a massive anti-immigrant sentiment I haven't really noticed it much. I've watched several highly-educated friends try to get green cards, jumping through hoops all the way. The fact that emigrating to the USA has been deliberately engineered to be very difficult is a relatively polite, bureaucratic, impersonal form of anti-immigrant sentiment, but it is definitely real.
- maxer 16y ago
  I assume you didnt live in northern ireland in the 70s/80s, where stop and searches where normal way of life and where you could see British soldiers patrolling the streets daily
- philwelch 16y ago
  Every culture that's experienced terrorism has different scars. The US was attacked using airliners; hence airliners are a target of paranoia. The IRA was fond of planting bombs in public trash cans ("rubbish bins" in the British vernacular); the British pull all the trash cans off the street and then invent a bomb-proof rubbish bin (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5051419.ece http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5051419.ece)

izendejas 16y ago

We're not really afraid/terrorized. We only require that leaders protect us and some are willing to forgo more liberties than others. If we were terrorized, we would not fly by the millions... every day! I won't get into the civil liberties topic. There are trade-offs we will all never agree on. One of those is security v. liberties. So everyone just tug their way and we'll see where we end up.

grandalf 16y ago
Your view attributes much rationality to how people are acting. My view of it is that humans routinely miscalculate risk and behave quite irrationally from a risk-minimization perspective. At the same time, a public that is largely apathetic about politics in general is easily moved by fear-mongering, us-vs-them rhetoric, etc. -- like any fad, terrorism simply captures the imagination of some people. Attempts to stop the overreaction suffer from the typical challenge: the majority who don't care about terrorism care about the issue less than the vocal minority for whom it's a very big (as in scary or as in profitable) deal. Also, due to the government's habit of paying for terrorism prevention, the typical corruption/overspending problems happen far more easily than they would in a decentralized system. And, due to the political nature of terrorism prevention, our leaders work to minimize the extent to which they would likely be blamed for an attack rather than working to make us feel/be safer.
- izendejas 16y ago
  Funny, I was going to start and end my post with similar statements. My first statement was a quote "a person is smart but people are stupid" (due to herd behavior). And I was going to end with the fact that many leaders care more about maintaining their seats than losing any lives on their watch and so are ready scare the minority who actually are not afraid of terrorism much more than they are about religions, people and ways of life they ignore (most of the author's examples are in fact evidence of this). But I edited my post because statistically the majority of us are not afraid. We care, and definitely vote for leaders who refuse to terrorize us a la Cheney, but we know we have to adapt our way of life to minimize the risks--which can be confused with fear, but is actually the rational thing to do, since we're dealing with irrational people. I was too succinct, but yes the majority needs to do a better job of controlling the message we send to terrorists--that I should have conceded.

sliverstorm 16y ago

"a Port of Seattle terminal was evacuated because a couple of dogs gave a false alarm for explosives" That doesn't sound like living in terror, that sounds like good sense. IIRC dogs are pretty reliable (false alarms are rare) and one terminal isn't the whole airport.

gcheong 16y ago
I wonder why, instead of X-rays and pat-downs they don't just use dogs. I would trust that a dog would be able to detect a bomb on a person much more readily than a person who's eyes are glazed over after looking at the nth person's scan or pat-down. And they gladly work for just love and kibble. Of course the TSA claims they are able to detect weapons such as guns and knives too, but I believe metal detectors are probably just as effective along with secure cockpits, air marshals on-board, and a public ready to fight back if necessary. Am I missing something about dogs that would make this impractical?
- lokijuhygtfrd 16y ago
  >Am I missing something about dogs ? Puppy breeders don't make million $ campaign contributions or hire TSA officials as 'advisers'
  - pessimizer 16y ago
    More specifically, Michael Chertoff isn't a puppy breeder.
  - bmalicoat 16y ago
    Also some people are terrified of dogs so having one sniff over them would be worse than being groped. Not that the TSA cares about feelings or anything though.
    - dfghjkhgbfd 16y ago
      Thats why airport sniffer dogs are often beagles rather than the German Sheppard/Bloodhounds used for cargo. Beagles are small cute and non-threatening, and they don't have to climb all over you to smell explosives. By contrast the police here got German Sheppards to sniff for drugs on suspects on the street. It turns out the police didn't actually buy trained sniffer dogs - they just wanted something big and fierce looking to 'encourage' people to cooperate. Not that the TSA would consider any such thing.

wakawana 16y ago

No comments allowed on the post? "Afraid" to be proven wrong that we are all being terrorized? Ironic.

garazy 16y ago

I agree with the coverage of events by the press/media encourage people to be terrorized. If the media get a story that will sell papers / get eye balls watching TV screens they will run with it until the cows come home (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/382900.html http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/382900.html).

jbyers 16y ago

(2006)

ajays 16y ago

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I remember reading about airliners being blown up: Air India Flight 182, Pan Am 103, etc. etc. Red Brigade, PFLP, IRA, etc. etc. So many planes were hijacked, blown up, or even shot down (Korean Air by the Soviets). And yet we didn't start cowering in terror like we do today. Here's a quick link; just read it and see how safe we've been since the late 90s: http://www.historycentral.com/Terrorhistory.html http://www.historycentral.com/Terrorhistory.html We were safe without any groping or x-raying or taking off our shoes and throwing away our bottles of baby's milk. What happened? How did we become a nation of wimps??

angrycoder 16y ago
What happened? Our leaders pursued a policy of fear and vengeance and the public ate it up like starving dogs.
- jonursenbach 16y ago
  The shock of 9/11 will do that to a person, heh.

aneth 16y ago

"Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed." Yes, the terrorists would have failed. Then they would exploit our continued lack of vigilance and try again and again until we were scared and started to crack down. These arguments that we should not respond to terrorism are a bunch of lovey dove hopeful hogwash. Terrorists aren't going to give up because we ignored their destructive acts. They will keep blowing more shit up until they are dead or get the attention they seek.

wdewind 16y ago
"This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots." http://www.schneier.com/essay-038.html http://www.schneier.com/essay-038.html At least read the next paragraph, dude.