13 ms·

The Irrationality of Giving Up This Much Liberty to Fight Terror

430 points by 300bps 13y ago

300bps 13y ago
Hindsight is 20/20, so I am not looking to place blame when I ask - how much better off would we be if we put the money we spent on the "war on terror" to just about any other use? There are some monumental things that can be done for a trillion dollars (see http://costofwar.com/ http://costofwar.com/ which doesn't even include the TSA or other homeland security operations).
- jemka 13y ago
  I don't think it has anything to do with hindsight. Even if you were, at one point, for spending every dime on the "war on terror" and now you are opposed, what does that mean? You're in the same exact place as you were. All worked up with yet another opinion. You're not a corporation with a lobbyist. You mean nothing. Terrorism prevention spending is an easier pill to swallow/get behind/comprehend/profit from/ compared to any other type of possible "thing" tax dollars can be spent on. The government needs to spend money on something. The economy depends on it. But what? People are obese. They have long lists of health problems and are plagued by the high cost of healthcare. But somehow the one thing that can help them directly (healthcare) alludes them. How is that such a difficult problem? But mention terrorist or the potential of an attack and people will usually get behind all kinds of different programs and spending. We'll fight these damn terrorists together. Hand in hand! For FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY. We might have to give up a few things. Want to read my emails? Eh, they're mostly just funny pictures of cats...so I guess that's fine. Oh you need money to fight terrorists? Here's a trillion dollars. If we get some cool gadgets out of it afterwards, then that's awesome! Just as long as it has a spill guard because you know I'll be sucking down some soda when I use it. Priorities...
- joering2 13y ago
  Cost of entire NASA program is pennies of the war cost... unfortunately there is more money to make at war, than at creating/maintaining peace and continuing humankind progress. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc
- Zigurd 13y ago
  In addition to the direct costs you have to add risk: At the same time war spending was peaking, the financial crisis strained the nation's ability to respond to the limit. I am amazed the economy survived and some would say it is still at risk from this strange variant of "guns and butter." Doing both at the same time strikes me as recklessness on a monumental scale.
dllthomas 13y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with the thesis here, and have been saying as much since 2001. An event on the scale of 9/11 happening every other day would still kill fewer Americans than heart disease.
- rayiner 13y ago
  A 9/11 happening every other day would cause $5.5 trillion a year in damage. Possibly much more, if you look at the impact of 9/11 on U.S. stocks. In any case, looking at just the death toll misses the point. The attack on the World Trade Center was the largest attack on continental U.S. soil since the British sacked the White House. The reaction it engendered was very understandably out of proportion with the number of lives lost in the attack. It was deeply disturbing to a nation that has for nearly its whole history felt secure, being isolated from anyone who would harm it by the world's largest oceans. As someone from a country with questionable security, let me tell you that you cannot measure the value of safety merely in lives lost. I bet in Bangladesh the violence of hartals (labor strikes) probably doesn't add up to very many lives at all, but the disruptive force of that violence is much stronger. A major terrorist attack just every year would make the U.S. a very different place (see, e.g., Israel).
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    I didn't say 9/11 happening every other day wouldn't be an awful thing, just that we should keep it in perspective. Most of the damage from such an event - including in the situations you describe - aside from loss of life is due to people not keeping the event in perspective, which is not less of a reason to keep it in perspective.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      The public reacts viscerally to terrorism and crime, out of proportion with natural causes that cause the same amount of damage. Accounting for that in public policy is keeping things in perspective. Also, if you want to be hyper-rational about this: the NSA program probably has incredible bang-for-buck. If it costs $500 million a year, it only has to prevent a 9/11-scale event once or twice a century to justify itself. Also, if we're "keeping things in perspective" why do you compare lives as if each one has equal value? One WTC worker was probably worth several times as much, in terms of GDP, as the average person who dies of heart disease. 3,000 people dying in Manhattan's financial district == 15,000 people dying in a Kansas City tornado... Obviously I'm being glib with this line of argument. You can't callously compare the two situations in the interest of "keeping things in perspective." So to can you not compare people dying in a terrorist attack to people dying of heart disease.
dllthomas 13y ago
I might say "killed with guns" rather than "by" - I'm not sure that I'd normally nitpick but when contrasting with "killed by terrorists" it seems more glaring.
- jff 13y ago
  It's also almost certain that they're including suicides in the gun number: "The two major component causes of all firearm injury deaths in 2009 were suicide (59.8%) and homicide (36.7%)." (source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf)
- giardini 13y ago
  Amazing! He's using this event (Snowden's revelations of unrestrained government snooping) to promote gun control.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    To be fair, it's a legitimate argument that "doing something about shootings" should be preferred to "doing something about terrorism" if they are likely to have a similar (proportional) effect and similar costs (in resources or liberty). It's still a few steps to get from there to "therefore we should ban guns", but he's not overtly saying that anyway.
- newnewnew 13y ago
  It's the new liberal cause du jour. You can be sure they will win the language war. See the "global warming" -> "climate change" switch after 15 years of stable temps or the studious avoidance of the word "baby" during the media coverage of the Kermit Gosnell trial. Guns are gaining agency and killing people. Better ban 'em.
tkahn6 13y ago
It seems that no one who brings this argument up acknowledges the possibility that terrorism doesn't seem like a big threat precisely because of the extreme precautions taken to stop it. Comparing traffic related deaths to terrorism related deaths is invalid since we don't spend the same resources or give up comparable liberties to prevent traffic related deaths. Any analysis that doesn't seriously consider that cannot be taken seriously. As the Boston Marathon Bombing showed us, it's very easy to create a lot of destruction and disruption and fear with very mundane items (gunpowder and pressure cookers). If it's so easy to accomplish, why doesn't it happen more? Either terrorism is genuinely not a serious threat or our security organizations are very good at what they do using the tools they have at their disposal. I would be in favor of our security apparatuses 'taking a break' or scaling back spying operations for about 5 years just to see what the result would be and if the American public would be able to tolerate it. Bombs going off every week in a major shopping mall or in an airliner or in a bus (like in Israel in the 90s) would probably not be acceptable to the American people. Alternatively, we would discover that terrorism is not a big threat and the debate about giving up liberties to prevent terrorism would be a very simple one.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  We expend enormous resources preventing traffic deaths. From driver education to advanced safety systems costing thousands of dollars (in every vehicle sold!). There are (approx.) 15 million cars sold in the U.S. each year. Each $1000 of safety equipment is $15 billion spent mitigating traffic injuries and reducing deaths. Maybe $15 billion looks silly in comparison to hundreds of billions, but it at least starts to look pretty comparable.
  - rogerbinns 13y ago
    We also require everyone who will drive to obtain government papers for both the people (license) and vehicles (registration).
  - darkarmani 13y ago
    If you are going to include the safety equipment people willingly pay for in their cars, you need to include the billions of dollars people spend on guns to protect themselves as well.
DanielBMarkham 13y ago
I completely agree that we've overreacted, but I've always rejected this argument, and here's why: Terrorism is not about numerical risk, it is about public perception. That means that it plays in the same game as everything else in the PR world: politics, advertising, social signaling, and so forth. The last thing it has anything to do with is logic. It would be great if we could tally up all the things that kill us and spend proportionally on those. It's the logical thing to do. Heart disease would come first, then cancer, and so on. But instead we spend and give attention to those things that the public perceives we should: AIDS research, nuclear war deterrence, terrorism. And if you think about it, that's the way it ought to be. Spending and making laws are all about the consent of the governed, doing things they want. They're not about math or logic. The problem here is that, with the Cold War over, the defense and intelligence industry saw 9-11 as a call to arms. They're going to go out and do things a good defense and intelligence industry should. And as Americans we have traditionally been forgiving of having our civil liberties temporarily trampled on during times of war. But you can't have a war forever. A democracy cannot survive this. Instead of the natural overreaction to a war that always happened, we started creating permanent infrastructure to address all terrorism, forever. We're fighting a war with nobody to surrender, and no amount of spending or government monitoring will ever be enough. The original laws around 9-11 were temporary, and for a very good reason. But somehow politics has gotten to the point where terrorism is the new third-rail: some national politicians might grandstand a bit, but nobody is going to do anything except for give the security state apparatus whatever it says it needs. Otherwise they'd be thrown out of office. Public perception demands it. Adding up numbers has nothing to do with it, unless you're using them to make some kind of persuasive argument, and then we're right back to public perception and politics. You're in the same boat as those who asked for more cancer research instead of AIDS research. Different people, rightly, see things differently, and everybody deserves to be represented. We're running a country, not an insurance agency.
- 3pt14159 13y ago
  When the public act like children our response should not to be lauding the misuse of funds because of their unreasonable demands but to educate them. Failing that, we should ignore them and actually do the things that are in their best interests. The litmus test for me would be this: If I took a sample of the population, thoroughly educated them about the matter to the point where there was no reasonable doubt left, would the majority have changed their position to mine. If so, and if we do not have the resources to teach the public about the nuances of every issue, then acting according to what they would come to believe is ethical. Furthermore it isn't even that simple. Not only is the public damaging itself, but it is also infringing on my rights. The added likelihood that I will die in a car crash vs a plane crash due to the extra hassle and delays at the airport is unsanctionable, regardless of claims to "consent of the governed".
squozzer 13y ago
While I agree with the article's main point, keep in mind that most of the comparative examples given do not threaten the legitimacy (or the aura thereof, if one wishes to distinguish between the two) of the government. That in itself should explain why the government pays so much attention to it. Why ordinary people seem to obsess over terror probably stems from all of the coverage an attack (or even a foiled plot, for that matter) gets. Which shouldn't surprise once one remembers how cozy the media is with the government.
aetherson 13y ago
This article is of course right on the money, and a well-argued version of this argument. But I have to think that everyone in the US has heard this argument a dozen times since 2001, and it seems like it has likely convinced all the people it's going to convince.
ianstallings 13y ago
The purpose of the institution is to protect the institution. This has about as much to do with terror as it does with aliens from another planet. Nothing at all. It's about protecting the US government from all threats. And they feel threatened by US citizens so they react with the subtleness of a titan. I sometimes wonder if this is the natural evolution of all governments, to overreact and slide into a delusional world, thinking complete control can be attained.
jerf 13y ago
We aren't giving up liberty to obtain safety. Those in power are using terrorism as an excuse to do what they want to do anyhow, and it's successful enough to provide just enough cover that successful resistance never quite formed. Educating people out of beliefs they mostly don't have is not going to solve the problem.
ck2 13y ago
This is nothing. Wait for the drones over every city.
T-A 13y ago
While I dislike mass surveillance as much as the next guy, the OP's particular argument against it strikes me as myopic. The risks which PRISM purportedly addresses do not cap out at the 3000 deaths by terrorism in 2001. One nuclear device detonated in a major city (let's say in a RORO container awaiting inspection in New York's harbor) could kill millions. Does inclusion of that number in the math make PRISM rational?
- hotpockets 13y ago
  Conversely, what would a huge epidemic do? Unlike terrorist nukes, we've already encountered massive global flu epidemics.
- socillion 13y ago
  How can you engage irrational fears with rational argument?
at-fates-hands 13y ago
The premise is completely off. If the author actually compared the totality of the impact of 9/11 on the country, instead of just comparing the number of people who die each year to various diseases, they would surely see the importance of fighting terrorism. Just some facts: http://www.iags.org/costof911.html http://www.iags.org/costof911.html - The destruction of major buildings in the World Trade Center with a replacement cost of from $3 billion to $4.5 billion. - Property and infrastructure damage: $10 billion to $13 -billion. - Federal emergency funds (heightened airport security, sky marshals, government takeover of airport security, retrofitting aircraft with anti-terrorist devices, cost of operations in Afghanistan): $40 billion. - Direct job losses amounted to 83,000, with $17 billion in lost wages. - Losses to the city of New York (lost jobs, lost taxes, damage to infrastructure, cleaning): $95 billion. - Fall of global markets: incalculable. Keep in mind the reason terror attacks have been successful here is that the terrorists use our own laws against us in order to gain an advantage. The lax immigration laws allowed many of the 9/11 hijackers to set up shop here. Keep in mind a large number of illegal immigrants being stopped at our southern border are middle eastern: http://www.wnd.com/2010/05/156441/ http://www.wnd.com/2010/05/156441/ "A 2006 congressional report on border threats, titled “A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border” and prepared by the House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, indicated that 1.2 million illegal aliens were apprehended in 2005 alone, and 165,000 of those were from countries other than Mexico. Approximately 650 were from “special interest countries,” or nations the Border Patrol defines as “designated by the intelligence community as countries that could export individuals that could bring harm to our country in the way of terrorism.” It's a tough balancing act. You don't want to give the bad guys an advantage, but when you keep the laws relaxed and reduce the amount of money being spent on this, all you do is play into the hands of the people who want to kill Americans.
- hotpockets 13y ago
  Ever heard of the economic impact of chronic disease? Its in the trillions per year (CDC, WHO, others). Ever consider the economic value of a human life? Its around $5 million. Since around 50 million people die each year from disease we can estimate the societal burden of disease to be ~$250 trillion dollars per year. If you do an full analysis, I would have a hard time believing you'd find the societal burden of terrorism is greater than the detrimental impact of disease.
djcjr 13y ago
Two quibbles: 1. We aren't "giving up" liberty, it's being taken. 2. It isn't for the purpose "to fight terror". Case in point, me. I have done absolutely nothing wrong, but (symmetrically) 1. I am having my liberties taken. 2. I am not a terrorist in any sense of the word. I suggest it is the odd framing the story that makes it seem irrational.
lazyjones 13y ago
It's short-sighted to assume that fighting terror is the only goal these governments have. One of the main benefits of a surveillance society is self-censorship and other "panopticon" effects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon#The_panopticon_as_metaphor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon#The_panopticon_as_me...). Fighting terrorism is, in my opinion, actually just a pretext.
temp453463343 13y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty "Liberty is the value of individuals to have agency (control over their own actions)" Privacy is not a liberty. It's a restriction on the action of others. TSA and no fly lists are restrictions on liberty.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  Come back when the government stops ordering service providers to provide information and insert intercept technologies whether or not they want to and whether or not you've contracted with them not to.
jack-r-abbit 13y ago
I find it a little ironic when people talk about how rare and possibly over-stated the terrorism threat is and then go on to freak out over the NSA snooping with a bunch of "what if" arguments ("what if they do [this|that|the_other_thing] with my data?") that are likely to be just as rare and over-stated. Even if it doesn't really concern me too much, I can respect your concern over it. But if you turn the NSA snooping into some doomsday thing, I won't really listen to you for very long.
- TallGuyShort 13y ago
  I think the concerning thing for me is trends. I don't think that, all other things being equal, acts of terrorism increase in frequency just by their nature. An intelligence agency, on the other hand, is going to seek for more and more power as long as it is unchecked. What scares me about the NSA is now what they're doing now, but the direction they're clearly headed in.
hotpockets 13y ago
There's even stronger arguments that this article doesn't make. Cures last forever (at least until the entropy death of the universe assuming we can become space-faring and continue to exist for ~10^50 years) benefiting incalculable numbers of people. On the other hand, preventing one terrorist attack, has very temporally limited benefits. New knowledge lasts forever.
Tycho 13y ago
You also have to consider that this loss of liberty was maybe exactly what the real terrorists wanted to inflict all along.
ilaksh 13y ago
"Terrorism" is simply the most popular contemporary propaganda used as cover for any type of state overt or covert military action or agenda. In other words, use of extraordinary force must be justified by circumstances of mythical proportions. The real reasons for going to war or surveillance of citizenry, like the desire to acquire territory and resource control, or to suppress dissidents or political opposition domestically, are not ethical or marketable.
codex 13y ago
Technically, liberty has not been impacted, only privacy.
leot 13y ago
Sent this letter to Conor Friedersdorf (article author): The trouble with the idea of "terrorism" is it doesn't distinguish between Boston Bombings and a 500k+ casualty attack from a nuclear device. The former can and should be dealt with within the normal rule of law and using normal law enforcement. In the case of the latter, we hope and expect that the full national security apparatus is directed toward preventing the event, and that a suspension of the normal rule of law could probably be appropriate. The problem is, like the 2008 financial crisis and the 2009 Gulf oil spill, the probability of these massive impact "black swan" events is much higher than naive statistical modeling and intuition would suggest. That is, the distribution of these events is "heavy-tailed": the probability of an extremely bad thing happening cannot be easily extrapolated from looking at the frequency with which less bad things have actually happened. I think people may have a sense that the distribution of terrorism events is "heavy-tailed", making our reaction not entirely irrational (though much of it is). The real problem is that the word "terrorism" conflates normal garden-variety shootings, bombings, and ricin-laced-letter-mailings with the events that could kill millions. If the NSA is only working on preventing the latter, then I think most people would be happy to let them read everything. But when peace activists are called threats to national security (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/peace-activists-nuclear_n_3306170.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/peace-activists-nuc...), and people in the IC joke that Glenn Greenwald should be "disappeared", it's hard to have faith that our national security apparatus is appropriately allocating its resources.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  The thing about nuclear terrorism is that it has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with capturing loose nukes. Al Qaeda isn't going to build a nuclear bomb. States can barely manage it. Which means as long as you keep the nukes locked up you don't have to worry about what Al Qaeda would do if they got one. Also, given that the most rational reason to steal a nuclear weapon is to sell it, it goes a long way to just be the highest bidder. And Uncle Sam is going to outbid Al Qaeda every day of the week. There is a reason that terrorists have never detonated a nuclear weapon.
cpdean 13y ago
I have a problem with the author's use of comparing the quantity of people killed by terrorists with the quantity of people killed by guns. The media isn't fearmongering off 'death by planecrash'. Why can't he use something more direct like 'mistakenly-shot a family member that forgot their keys', or drive-by shootings, accidental-discharge-of-a-firearm-while-it-was-being-cleaned deaths? Unlocked gun cabinet related deaths?
D_Alex 13y ago
Now consider also this: the medical privacy rights have the effect of withholding from research vast amounts of medical data, which would be extremely valuable in, say, cancer research. How many people did CANCER kill in the US 2001-2012? Roughly 6 million. 6,000,000 people. 2000 times more than terror attacks. Cardiovascular disease and stroke: roughly the same, and just as likely to benefit from medical data. I - personally - would much prefer that my medical data becomes known, than my e-mails and telephone conversations. I think that applies to 99+ % of us. Certainly the argument "if you did nothing wrong, you got nothing to hide" applies to medical data - few medical problems would land someone in trouble.
fexl 13y ago
Right: (1) the chance of being murdered for any reason is very low, (2) the chance of being murdered for a political reason (a.k.a "terrorism") is extremely low, and (3) the chance that a multi-billion dollar, multi-yottabyte info dragnet can save you from (2), or is even designed to do so, is also very low.
chmike 13y ago
Do you think the NSA spying operation in the US is only for terrorism ? This sounds so much like the pedophile argument when talking about internet privacy.
Digit-Al 13y ago
Americans always seem to be boasting how they are better at things than everyone else. Well now they can add 'killing Americans' to the list. As Homer Simpson would say: USA, USA, USA :-)

430 points by 300bps 13y ago

Hindsight is 20/20, so I am not looking to place blame when I ask - how much better off would we be if we put the money we spent on the "war on terror" to just about any other use? There are some monumental things that can be done for a trillion dollars (see http://costofwar.com/ http://costofwar.com/ which doesn't even include the TSA or other homeland security operations).

jemka 13y ago
I don't think it has anything to do with hindsight. Even if you were, at one point, for spending every dime on the "war on terror" and now you are opposed, what does that mean? You're in the same exact place as you were. All worked up with yet another opinion. You're not a corporation with a lobbyist. You mean nothing. Terrorism prevention spending is an easier pill to swallow/get behind/comprehend/profit from/ compared to any other type of possible "thing" tax dollars can be spent on. The government needs to spend money on something. The economy depends on it. But what? People are obese. They have long lists of health problems and are plagued by the high cost of healthcare. But somehow the one thing that can help them directly (healthcare) alludes them. How is that such a difficult problem? But mention terrorist or the potential of an attack and people will usually get behind all kinds of different programs and spending. We'll fight these damn terrorists together. Hand in hand! For FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY. We might have to give up a few things. Want to read my emails? Eh, they're mostly just funny pictures of cats...so I guess that's fine. Oh you need money to fight terrorists? Here's a trillion dollars. If we get some cool gadgets out of it afterwards, then that's awesome! Just as long as it has a spill guard because you know I'll be sucking down some soda when I use it. Priorities...
joering2 13y ago
Cost of entire NASA program is pennies of the war cost... unfortunately there is more money to make at war, than at creating/maintaining peace and continuing humankind progress. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc
Zigurd 13y ago
In addition to the direct costs you have to add risk: At the same time war spending was peaking, the financial crisis strained the nation's ability to respond to the limit. I am amazed the economy survived and some would say it is still at risk from this strange variant of "guns and butter." Doing both at the same time strikes me as recklessness on a monumental scale.

dllthomas 13y ago

I wholeheartedly agree with the thesis here, and have been saying as much since 2001. An event on the scale of 9/11 happening every other day would still kill fewer Americans than heart disease.

rayiner 13y ago
A 9/11 happening every other day would cause $5.5 trillion a year in damage. Possibly much more, if you look at the impact of 9/11 on U.S. stocks. In any case, looking at just the death toll misses the point. The attack on the World Trade Center was the largest attack on continental U.S. soil since the British sacked the White House. The reaction it engendered was very understandably out of proportion with the number of lives lost in the attack. It was deeply disturbing to a nation that has for nearly its whole history felt secure, being isolated from anyone who would harm it by the world's largest oceans. As someone from a country with questionable security, let me tell you that you cannot measure the value of safety merely in lives lost. I bet in Bangladesh the violence of hartals (labor strikes) probably doesn't add up to very many lives at all, but the disruptive force of that violence is much stronger. A major terrorist attack just every year would make the U.S. a very different place (see, e.g., Israel).
- dllthomas 13y ago
  I didn't say 9/11 happening every other day wouldn't be an awful thing, just that we should keep it in perspective. Most of the damage from such an event - including in the situations you describe - aside from loss of life is due to people not keeping the event in perspective, which is not less of a reason to keep it in perspective.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    The public reacts viscerally to terrorism and crime, out of proportion with natural causes that cause the same amount of damage. Accounting for that in public policy is keeping things in perspective. Also, if you want to be hyper-rational about this: the NSA program probably has incredible bang-for-buck. If it costs $500 million a year, it only has to prevent a 9/11-scale event once or twice a century to justify itself. Also, if we're "keeping things in perspective" why do you compare lives as if each one has equal value? One WTC worker was probably worth several times as much, in terms of GDP, as the average person who dies of heart disease. 3,000 people dying in Manhattan's financial district == 15,000 people dying in a Kansas City tornado... Obviously I'm being glib with this line of argument. You can't callously compare the two situations in the interest of "keeping things in perspective." So to can you not compare people dying in a terrorist attack to people dying of heart disease.

dllthomas 13y ago

I might say "killed with guns" rather than "by" - I'm not sure that I'd normally nitpick but when contrasting with "killed by terrorists" it seems more glaring.

jff 13y ago
It's also almost certain that they're including suicides in the gun number: "The two major component causes of all firearm injury deaths in 2009 were suicide (59.8%) and homicide (36.7%)." (source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf)
giardini 13y ago
Amazing! He's using this event (Snowden's revelations of unrestrained government snooping) to promote gun control.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  To be fair, it's a legitimate argument that "doing something about shootings" should be preferred to "doing something about terrorism" if they are likely to have a similar (proportional) effect and similar costs (in resources or liberty). It's still a few steps to get from there to "therefore we should ban guns", but he's not overtly saying that anyway.
newnewnew 13y ago
It's the new liberal cause du jour. You can be sure they will win the language war. See the "global warming" -> "climate change" switch after 15 years of stable temps or the studious avoidance of the word "baby" during the media coverage of the Kermit Gosnell trial. Guns are gaining agency and killing people. Better ban 'em.

tkahn6 13y ago

It seems that no one who brings this argument up acknowledges the possibility that terrorism doesn't seem like a big threat precisely because of the extreme precautions taken to stop it. Comparing traffic related deaths to terrorism related deaths is invalid since we don't spend the same resources or give up comparable liberties to prevent traffic related deaths. Any analysis that doesn't seriously consider that cannot be taken seriously. As the Boston Marathon Bombing showed us, it's very easy to create a lot of destruction and disruption and fear with very mundane items (gunpowder and pressure cookers). If it's so easy to accomplish, why doesn't it happen more? Either terrorism is genuinely not a serious threat or our security organizations are very good at what they do using the tools they have at their disposal. I would be in favor of our security apparatuses 'taking a break' or scaling back spying operations for about 5 years just to see what the result would be and if the American public would be able to tolerate it. Bombs going off every week in a major shopping mall or in an airliner or in a bus (like in Israel in the 90s) would probably not be acceptable to the American people. Alternatively, we would discover that terrorism is not a big threat and the debate about giving up liberties to prevent terrorism would be a very simple one.

maxerickson 13y ago
We expend enormous resources preventing traffic deaths. From driver education to advanced safety systems costing thousands of dollars (in every vehicle sold!). There are (approx.) 15 million cars sold in the U.S. each year. Each $1000 of safety equipment is $15 billion spent mitigating traffic injuries and reducing deaths. Maybe $15 billion looks silly in comparison to hundreds of billions, but it at least starts to look pretty comparable.
- rogerbinns 13y ago
  We also require everyone who will drive to obtain government papers for both the people (license) and vehicles (registration).
- darkarmani 13y ago
  If you are going to include the safety equipment people willingly pay for in their cars, you need to include the billions of dollars people spend on guns to protect themselves as well.

DanielBMarkham 13y ago

I completely agree that we've overreacted, but I've always rejected this argument, and here's why: Terrorism is not about numerical risk, it is about public perception. That means that it plays in the same game as everything else in the PR world: politics, advertising, social signaling, and so forth. The last thing it has anything to do with is logic. It would be great if we could tally up all the things that kill us and spend proportionally on those. It's the logical thing to do. Heart disease would come first, then cancer, and so on. But instead we spend and give attention to those things that the public perceives we should: AIDS research, nuclear war deterrence, terrorism. And if you think about it, that's the way it ought to be. Spending and making laws are all about the consent of the governed, doing things they want. They're not about math or logic. The problem here is that, with the Cold War over, the defense and intelligence industry saw 9-11 as a call to arms. They're going to go out and do things a good defense and intelligence industry should. And as Americans we have traditionally been forgiving of having our civil liberties temporarily trampled on during times of war. But you can't have a war forever. A democracy cannot survive this. Instead of the natural overreaction to a war that always happened, we started creating permanent infrastructure to address all terrorism, forever. We're fighting a war with nobody to surrender, and no amount of spending or government monitoring will ever be enough. The original laws around 9-11 were temporary, and for a very good reason. But somehow politics has gotten to the point where terrorism is the new third-rail: some national politicians might grandstand a bit, but nobody is going to do anything except for give the security state apparatus whatever it says it needs. Otherwise they'd be thrown out of office. Public perception demands it. Adding up numbers has nothing to do with it, unless you're using them to make some kind of persuasive argument, and then we're right back to public perception and politics. You're in the same boat as those who asked for more cancer research instead of AIDS research. Different people, rightly, see things differently, and everybody deserves to be represented. We're running a country, not an insurance agency.

3pt14159 13y ago
When the public act like children our response should not to be lauding the misuse of funds because of their unreasonable demands but to educate them. Failing that, we should ignore them and actually do the things that are in their best interests. The litmus test for me would be this: If I took a sample of the population, thoroughly educated them about the matter to the point where there was no reasonable doubt left, would the majority have changed their position to mine. If so, and if we do not have the resources to teach the public about the nuances of every issue, then acting according to what they would come to believe is ethical. Furthermore it isn't even that simple. Not only is the public damaging itself, but it is also infringing on my rights. The added likelihood that I will die in a car crash vs a plane crash due to the extra hassle and delays at the airport is unsanctionable, regardless of claims to "consent of the governed".

squozzer 13y ago

While I agree with the article's main point, keep in mind that most of the comparative examples given do not threaten the legitimacy (or the aura thereof, if one wishes to distinguish between the two) of the government. That in itself should explain why the government pays so much attention to it. Why ordinary people seem to obsess over terror probably stems from all of the coverage an attack (or even a foiled plot, for that matter) gets. Which shouldn't surprise once one remembers how cozy the media is with the government.

aetherson 13y ago

This article is of course right on the money, and a well-argued version of this argument. But I have to think that everyone in the US has heard this argument a dozen times since 2001, and it seems like it has likely convinced all the people it's going to convince.

ianstallings 13y ago

The purpose of the institution is to protect the institution. This has about as much to do with terror as it does with aliens from another planet. Nothing at all. It's about protecting the US government from all threats. And they feel threatened by US citizens so they react with the subtleness of a titan. I sometimes wonder if this is the natural evolution of all governments, to overreact and slide into a delusional world, thinking complete control can be attained.

jerf 13y ago

We aren't giving up liberty to obtain safety. Those in power are using terrorism as an excuse to do what they want to do anyhow, and it's successful enough to provide just enough cover that successful resistance never quite formed. Educating people out of beliefs they mostly don't have is not going to solve the problem.

ck2 13y ago

This is nothing. Wait for the drones over every city.

T-A 13y ago

While I dislike mass surveillance as much as the next guy, the OP's particular argument against it strikes me as myopic. The risks which PRISM purportedly addresses do not cap out at the 3000 deaths by terrorism in 2001. One nuclear device detonated in a major city (let's say in a RORO container awaiting inspection in New York's harbor) could kill millions. Does inclusion of that number in the math make PRISM rational?

hotpockets 13y ago
Conversely, what would a huge epidemic do? Unlike terrorist nukes, we've already encountered massive global flu epidemics.
socillion 13y ago
How can you engage irrational fears with rational argument?

at-fates-hands 13y ago

The premise is completely off. If the author actually compared the totality of the impact of 9/11 on the country, instead of just comparing the number of people who die each year to various diseases, they would surely see the importance of fighting terrorism. Just some facts: http://www.iags.org/costof911.html http://www.iags.org/costof911.html - The destruction of major buildings in the World Trade Center with a replacement cost of from $3 billion to $4.5 billion. - Property and infrastructure damage: $10 billion to $13 -billion. - Federal emergency funds (heightened airport security, sky marshals, government takeover of airport security, retrofitting aircraft with anti-terrorist devices, cost of operations in Afghanistan): $40 billion. - Direct job losses amounted to 83,000, with $17 billion in lost wages. - Losses to the city of New York (lost jobs, lost taxes, damage to infrastructure, cleaning): $95 billion. - Fall of global markets: incalculable. Keep in mind the reason terror attacks have been successful here is that the terrorists use our own laws against us in order to gain an advantage. The lax immigration laws allowed many of the 9/11 hijackers to set up shop here. Keep in mind a large number of illegal immigrants being stopped at our southern border are middle eastern: http://www.wnd.com/2010/05/156441/ http://www.wnd.com/2010/05/156441/ "A 2006 congressional report on border threats, titled “A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border” and prepared by the House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, indicated that 1.2 million illegal aliens were apprehended in 2005 alone, and 165,000 of those were from countries other than Mexico. Approximately 650 were from “special interest countries,” or nations the Border Patrol defines as “designated by the intelligence community as countries that could export individuals that could bring harm to our country in the way of terrorism.” It's a tough balancing act. You don't want to give the bad guys an advantage, but when you keep the laws relaxed and reduce the amount of money being spent on this, all you do is play into the hands of the people who want to kill Americans.

hotpockets 13y ago
Ever heard of the economic impact of chronic disease? Its in the trillions per year (CDC, WHO, others). Ever consider the economic value of a human life? Its around $5 million. Since around 50 million people die each year from disease we can estimate the societal burden of disease to be ~$250 trillion dollars per year. If you do an full analysis, I would have a hard time believing you'd find the societal burden of terrorism is greater than the detrimental impact of disease.

djcjr 13y ago

Two quibbles: 1. We aren't "giving up" liberty, it's being taken. 2. It isn't for the purpose "to fight terror". Case in point, me. I have done absolutely nothing wrong, but (symmetrically) 1. I am having my liberties taken. 2. I am not a terrorist in any sense of the word. I suggest it is the odd framing the story that makes it seem irrational.

lazyjones 13y ago

It's short-sighted to assume that fighting terror is the only goal these governments have. One of the main benefits of a surveillance society is self-censorship and other "panopticon" effects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon#The_panopticon_as_metaphor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon#The_panopticon_as_me...). Fighting terrorism is, in my opinion, actually just a pretext.

temp453463343 13y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty "Liberty is the value of individuals to have agency (control over their own actions)" Privacy is not a liberty. It's a restriction on the action of others. TSA and no fly lists are restrictions on liberty.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago
Come back when the government stops ordering service providers to provide information and insert intercept technologies whether or not they want to and whether or not you've contracted with them not to.

jack-r-abbit 13y ago

I find it a little ironic when people talk about how rare and possibly over-stated the terrorism threat is and then go on to freak out over the NSA snooping with a bunch of "what if" arguments ("what if they do [this|that|the_other_thing] with my data?") that are likely to be just as rare and over-stated. Even if it doesn't really concern me too much, I can respect your concern over it. But if you turn the NSA snooping into some doomsday thing, I won't really listen to you for very long.

TallGuyShort 13y ago
I think the concerning thing for me is trends. I don't think that, all other things being equal, acts of terrorism increase in frequency just by their nature. An intelligence agency, on the other hand, is going to seek for more and more power as long as it is unchecked. What scares me about the NSA is now what they're doing now, but the direction they're clearly headed in.

hotpockets 13y ago

There's even stronger arguments that this article doesn't make. Cures last forever (at least until the entropy death of the universe assuming we can become space-faring and continue to exist for ~10^50 years) benefiting incalculable numbers of people. On the other hand, preventing one terrorist attack, has very temporally limited benefits. New knowledge lasts forever.

Tycho 13y ago

You also have to consider that this loss of liberty was maybe exactly what the real terrorists wanted to inflict all along.

ilaksh 13y ago

"Terrorism" is simply the most popular contemporary propaganda used as cover for any type of state overt or covert military action or agenda. In other words, use of extraordinary force must be justified by circumstances of mythical proportions. The real reasons for going to war or surveillance of citizenry, like the desire to acquire territory and resource control, or to suppress dissidents or political opposition domestically, are not ethical or marketable.

codex 13y ago

Technically, liberty has not been impacted, only privacy.

leot 13y ago

Sent this letter to Conor Friedersdorf (article author): The trouble with the idea of "terrorism" is it doesn't distinguish between Boston Bombings and a 500k+ casualty attack from a nuclear device. The former can and should be dealt with within the normal rule of law and using normal law enforcement. In the case of the latter, we hope and expect that the full national security apparatus is directed toward preventing the event, and that a suspension of the normal rule of law could probably be appropriate. The problem is, like the 2008 financial crisis and the 2009 Gulf oil spill, the probability of these massive impact "black swan" events is much higher than naive statistical modeling and intuition would suggest. That is, the distribution of these events is "heavy-tailed": the probability of an extremely bad thing happening cannot be easily extrapolated from looking at the frequency with which less bad things have actually happened. I think people may have a sense that the distribution of terrorism events is "heavy-tailed", making our reaction not entirely irrational (though much of it is). The real problem is that the word "terrorism" conflates normal garden-variety shootings, bombings, and ricin-laced-letter-mailings with the events that could kill millions. If the NSA is only working on preventing the latter, then I think most people would be happy to let them read everything. But when peace activists are called threats to national security (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/peace-activists-nuclear_n_3306170.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/peace-activists-nuc...), and people in the IC joke that Glenn Greenwald should be "disappeared", it's hard to have faith that our national security apparatus is appropriately allocating its resources.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago
The thing about nuclear terrorism is that it has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with capturing loose nukes. Al Qaeda isn't going to build a nuclear bomb. States can barely manage it. Which means as long as you keep the nukes locked up you don't have to worry about what Al Qaeda would do if they got one. Also, given that the most rational reason to steal a nuclear weapon is to sell it, it goes a long way to just be the highest bidder. And Uncle Sam is going to outbid Al Qaeda every day of the week. There is a reason that terrorists have never detonated a nuclear weapon.

cpdean 13y ago

I have a problem with the author's use of comparing the quantity of people killed by terrorists with the quantity of people killed by guns. The media isn't fearmongering off 'death by planecrash'. Why can't he use something more direct like 'mistakenly-shot a family member that forgot their keys', or drive-by shootings, accidental-discharge-of-a-firearm-while-it-was-being-cleaned deaths? Unlocked gun cabinet related deaths?

D_Alex 13y ago

Now consider also this: the medical privacy rights have the effect of withholding from research vast amounts of medical data, which would be extremely valuable in, say, cancer research. How many people did CANCER kill in the US 2001-2012? Roughly 6 million. 6,000,000 people. 2000 times more than terror attacks. Cardiovascular disease and stroke: roughly the same, and just as likely to benefit from medical data. I - personally - would much prefer that my medical data becomes known, than my e-mails and telephone conversations. I think that applies to 99+ % of us. Certainly the argument "if you did nothing wrong, you got nothing to hide" applies to medical data - few medical problems would land someone in trouble.

fexl 13y ago

Right: (1) the chance of being murdered for any reason is very low, (2) the chance of being murdered for a political reason (a.k.a "terrorism") is extremely low, and (3) the chance that a multi-billion dollar, multi-yottabyte info dragnet can save you from (2), or is even designed to do so, is also very low.

chmike 13y ago

Do you think the NSA spying operation in the US is only for terrorism ? This sounds so much like the pedophile argument when talking about internet privacy.

Digit-Al 13y ago

Americans always seem to be boasting how they are better at things than everyone else. Well now they can add 'killing Americans' to the list. As Homer Simpson would say: USA, USA, USA :-)