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"reasonably forseeable" is hard to define. Let us, for a moment, use being able to implement countermeasures without seeming like a crazy lunatic as a definitio

"reasonably forseeable" is hard to define. Let us, for a moment, use being able to implement countermeasures without seeming like a crazy lunatic as a definition. As a politician in a pre-9/11 world, if you had done what would have been necessary to prevent a 9/11 (not go and arrest the very guys who did it, that would have required perfect foresight), i.e. add bulletproof doors to planes, implement the very invasive searches the TSA does etc., maybe ground commercial aviation until those measures would have been in place, it would be the end of your career. The remote possibility of a terrorist attack has only become a justification for about everything after 9/11. Also, 9/11 was just one of many terrorist threats at that time, it's just in hindsight that we consider this particular one inevitable. Edit: Spelling

vidarh 14y ago
Hijackings had happened many times. Including with weapons. There was plenty of knowledge that could have easily justified adding secure, lockable cockpit doors. And that would have been a good, low impact way of mitigating against known risks while also taking a whole host of unknown risks off the table or substantially reducing them, including reducing the chance of 9/11 having the impact it did or even being tried. I think that is one of the changes that more focus on mitigating risk vs. avoiding it might have produced. E.g. when faced with heightened risk of terrorist attacks, a rational response would be to not focus so much on identifying potential attackers and stopping a specific plot, but spending more resources at looking into low impact ways to mitigate the consequences of at various broad modes of attack actually getting underway. The specifics of 9/11 was probably near impossible to predict, but another eventual hijacking was a near certainty, and an eventual building collapse for whatever reason should have been considered a near certainty, as many high-rises have failed over the years too. The failure to reduce the potential impact of those known risks are the real failures of 9/11, not the failure to prevent the specific plot, as these were broad, known risks and the actual causes leading up to them would be largely irrelevant for a lot of mitigating actions.
jacques_chester 14y ago
> "reasonably forseeable" is hard to define. It certainly is. The concept of negligence was reinvented or reintroduced into the Common Law starting in 1932 with Donoghue v Stevenson and the lawyers have been wrestling with it ever since. I hated Torts as a student, it's a damn fiddly area of law. Give me Trusts any day of the week. Still: if you want to study how intelligent people have mapped out the concept of "reasonably foreseeable", then lawyers -- particularly Scots lawyers who also look to Roman law -- are the people to talk to for inspiration.

vidarh 14y ago

Hijackings had happened many times. Including with weapons. There was plenty of knowledge that could have easily justified adding secure, lockable cockpit doors. And that would have been a good, low impact way of mitigating against known risks while also taking a whole host of unknown risks off the table or substantially reducing them, including reducing the chance of 9/11 having the impact it did or even being tried. I think that is one of the changes that more focus on mitigating risk vs. avoiding it might have produced. E.g. when faced with heightened risk of terrorist attacks, a rational response would be to not focus so much on identifying potential attackers and stopping a specific plot, but spending more resources at looking into low impact ways to mitigate the consequences of at various broad modes of attack actually getting underway. The specifics of 9/11 was probably near impossible to predict, but another eventual hijacking was a near certainty, and an eventual building collapse for whatever reason should have been considered a near certainty, as many high-rises have failed over the years too. The failure to reduce the potential impact of those known risks are the real failures of 9/11, not the failure to prevent the specific plot, as these were broad, known risks and the actual causes leading up to them would be largely irrelevant for a lot of mitigating actions.

jacques_chester 14y ago

> "reasonably forseeable" is hard to define. It certainly is. The concept of negligence was reinvented or reintroduced into the Common Law starting in 1932 with Donoghue v Stevenson and the lawyers have been wrestling with it ever since. I hated Torts as a student, it's a damn fiddly area of law. Give me Trusts any day of the week. Still: if you want to study how intelligent people have mapped out the concept of "reasonably foreseeable", then lawyers -- particularly Scots lawyers who also look to Roman law -- are the people to talk to for inspiration.