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As a U.S. Citizen I support Snowden. Since 1865, there have been 5,031 deaths and 22,125 injuries caused by terrorism in the United States. Source: http://ww

• jarsj 13y ago
  Am I the only one who find this flawed ? Why won't you take into account the deaths that would have occured both in short/long run if that money/time wasn't spent ? Note that this has kind of a butterfly effect. There is a possible argument for doing it more efficiently or differently, but this extreme comparison makes no sense.
• oleganza 13y ago
  It's a very dangerous path to take when discussing statistics. Will it become moral to lie and extract taxation from people if there were 5000000 terrorists? At which amount of terrorists morality of gov lying and spying switches from "bad" to "good"? Or, if morality is not black and white, how can one lie and spy at the half the speed?
  • 300bps 13y ago
    It's a very dangerous path to take when discussing statistics. Statistics let you evaluate many things, including if the "cure" is worse than the "disease". In this case, terrorism has killed 5,000 people in 148 years. The "war on terror" has killed 4,486 Americans in Iraq and 2,259 Americans in Afghanistan alone. Source: http://icasualties.org/ http://icasualties.org/ That's at least 6,745 Americans killed in a little over a decade to fight something that has killed 5,000 Americans in 148 years. I'm purposely only mentioning American deaths to show how starkly idiotic what we're doing is.
    • oleganza 13y ago
      So is it okay to take 5 good organs from a single man to save 5 lives? For me, morality comes first, then you use statistics to choose what's good for you, not me. I will decide on my own. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism
      • wfn 13y ago
        Straw man. You can be a consequentialist but still see the absurd rhetoric of the 'war on terror', noting actual casualty numbers due to 'terrorism'.
        • oleganza 13y ago
          300bps pointed out that means justify ends. If there were more terrorists caught than people dying in car accidents, that would justify NSA activity in his eyes. (If it wouldn't, he would not defend his stats-based argument.) I point out that with right statistics one can justify anything. E.g. giving up one man's life for 5 lives is measurable and sounds solid. Why don't we do that? Because we all have this gut feeling that some things are plain wrong.
          • 300bps 13y ago
            300bps pointed out that means justify ends I think what you meant to accuse me of is "ends justify means" but you're obviously a non-native English speaker so it's understandable. However, you are incorrect that I was saying "ends justify means". Instead I'm saying, "some ends justify some means". There's no legitimate point in attempting to ascribe a black and white philosophy to me. If there were more terrorists caught than people dying in car accidents, that would justify NSA activity in his eyes. Not even close. You have to admit that you completely made that up and ascribed it to me when I had never said it. However, I will say that if 310 million Americans per year were dying of terrorism I would think NSA activity might be justified.
          • Dylan16807 13y ago
            You completely misread. Pretend you're looking at a theoretical 'wrong cure' for a problem. The first thing you should do is check if such a cure even works at all. Then you need to decide if it works well enough that you are willing to do something wrong. 300bps never said that you should automatically accept any wrong cure that works. Working is only one requirement.
  • RyanZAG 13y ago
    Seems like a fairly straight forward comparison at face value: What negative value do you ascribe to 5000 people being killed by terrorists compared to 5 million people? Obviously, 5 million deaths would have a far greater effect on every day life and the ability of society to function. On the other side, what value do you ascribe to freedom from government lies and spying? This is tougher, but it is generally assumed that the government performing such acts will lead to inefficient use of resources and services - resources that could have been used to prevent deaths in car accidents or raise the standard of society as a whole. So at face level, the OPs comparison using statistics is fairly sound, and the changeover point is where the number of deaths or potential deaths switches over from one side of the argument to the other. The OP is arguing that 5000 deaths is nowhere near the costs that the spying program has on society. This seems fair. The arguments against the OP are that removing the spying program would increase the 5000 figure by orders of magnitude, or that the spying program has no negative effects. I disagree with both these arguments, so I think that the OP is probably right.
  • flexie 13y ago
    If terrorism killed millions it would be easier to accept the loss of liberty associated with the current war on terrorism. But loosing ALL Internet and phone privacy, basic human rights such as the right not to be tortured and to some degree loosing the checks and balances of a normal democracy in the fight against a ghost is hard to swallow.
  • mikeash 13y ago
    I don't see how it's "dangerous". If terrorism were a leading cause of death, I'd advocate for fighting it with many resources. However, it's an insignificant cause of death, so I advocate for dedicating very few resources to it. My attitude toward the NSA leaks is, "they should not be doing this." If terrorism killed millions, it would be, "they should be doing a better job of this." Numbers matter.
    • oleganza 13y ago
      So if terrorism was killing some people, you'd justify someone forcing me to pay taxes to fund NSA? Or you'd prefer some non-violent, voluntary way to organise protection against terrorism? Would you kick ass of your neighbour if he disagrees on your terrorist-fighting methods, or would you try to argue with him peacefully and let him live his life if he still disagrees with you? Would you like to be able to peacefully disagree with people, or are you okay if someone is forcing you to comply?
      • mikeash 13y ago
        Yes, I would justify someone forcing you to pay taxes to fund the NSA in that case, just like I currently justify someone forcing you, and me, to pay taxes to build roads, pay teachers and policemen and firefighters, fund the military, etc. I strongly disapprove of some activities of government, but not of the concept overall.
        • oleganza 13y ago
          So you should justify putting Snowden in prison because that's what government wants to do with him for failing his obligations. And since you justify violence when it comes from government, there is a contradiction if you disapprove of it. Are you okay with government coming to your datacenter and forcing you to give them your customers' data or you are not? If government-issued violence is justified, then you cannot be disappointed, no?
          • mikeash 13y ago
• impendia 13y ago
  Unfortunately I think those statistics are unreliable. I fully agree that outsiders (e.g. Al Qaeda) have done miniscule damage in comparison to, say, the tobacco industry. But if you want to look at the history of terrorism in our country, don't look to Al Qaeda or whatever. Start closer to home, with the Ku Klux Klan. They were unequivocally a terrorist group; indeed, their entire raison d'etre was terrorism. As I pointed out in a thread yesterday, here [1] is an example of homegrown terrorism, absent from your list. Ben Tillman [2], who played a leading role in the murders (or, at least, who claimed to; perhaps he was too chickenshit to do his own dirty work) was rewarded for his efforts by election to the South Carolina governorship and, later, the United States Senate. African-American participation in voting in the South was virtually nil from around 1880 to the 1960's. Why? Terrorism played a major role. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_Massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_Massacre [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Ryan_Tillman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Ryan_Tillman
  • weego 13y ago
    I can't really find any ground on which it feels like this argument has any bearing or weight in the overall discussion. Anything can be redefined to terrorism by your measure as hindsight is apparently blind to context.
    • impendia 13y ago
      "Terrorism"! Just the word strikes fear into the hearts of many Americans. It has led us to suffer indignities at airport lines, spend billions on ill-conceived wars, and spy on everyone's internet communications. And yet, terrorism has been an extremely widespread and common phenomenon throughout our history, even on our own shores, which has been aided, abetted, and welcomed by government. It is, in some ways, easy to overlook because privileged Americans were not targets. But African-Americans have endured terrorism in this country on an overwhelming scale and with far-reaching consequences. Although I dispute the statistics in the link I mentioned, ultimately I agree with the basic point: to be excessively frightened of terrorism, in its current guise, shows a lack of perspective both on statistics and on our nation's history. >Anything can be redefined to terrorism Wikipedia defines terrorism as "Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, often violent, especially as a means of coercion." Do you dispute that the KKK systematically engaged in this?
• xfax 13y ago
  Not disagreeing with you on the sentiment, but the argument disregards causation. It's like saying Fort Knox has never been broken into, so let's stop wasting money protecting it. By the way, this example is only meant to highlight the fallacy, nothing more.
  • 300bps 13y ago
    It's like saying Fort Knox has never been broken into, so let's stop wasting money protecting it I disagree. It's not a black and white "protect Fort Knox" or "Don't protect Fort Knox". It's more like saying Fort Knox has never been broken into, so let's evaluate whether we need 240,000 employees to protect it (number of employees in Department of Homeland Security). Let's evaluate whether we need to pat down everyone at an airport to see if they have plans to rob Fort Knox. Let's evaluate whether we need to eavesdrop on everyone on the Internet and record information about their phone calls to see if they're planning on robbing Fort Knox. Let's evaluate whether we need to invade two countries because people from one of those countries actually were able to steal a tiny fraction of a fraction of the gold in Fort Knox. Our response to terrorism is unique and we treat no other problem like it, going even further than the "war on drugs".
    • honzzz 13y ago
      And I think it's not only about whether the cost of protecting Fort Knox is not bigger than the value that can be potentially stolen from Fort Knox. The so called war on terror is not without consequences - it alienates people all over the world and sometimes it even creates hate against the US. I am not only talking about drone attacks which I believe might create more new terrorists than it kills. All that spying is going to cost you many friends in Europe and the rest of the previously US-friendly world and alienating all your friends is not the best strategy when you want to be safe. I don't have any hard data on this (how could we measure that?) but I personally believe that those claiming to protect US from terrorism do more harm than any terrorist could ever achieve.
    • honzzz 13y ago
      I just remembered reading an article [1] mentioning indirect impact of combination of fear of flying caused by 9/11 and annoyance caused by TSA (which one has bigger impact?) that pushed more people to travel by cars. That is less secure than flying and number of fatalities on roads increased by hundreds a month because of that. The way I see it this is one example of how war on terrorism can kill more people than terrorism itself. I am beginning to believe that the best strategy to win the war on terror would be to basically just ignore terrorism and do only the most basic and least intrusive things to avoid terrorist attacks. [1] http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-18/how-airport-security-is-killing-us http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-18/how-airport-...
• carlob 13y ago
  Then there is the question of reliability of the information collected through spying: if you know everything you say online is being read, and you are planning to commit a terrorist act, you will use your knowledge to spread false information. One day we will consider spying just like torture, an immoral source of unreliable information.
• spoiledtechie 13y ago
  I would agree with all your stats, but inevitably, a car crash or even to drive a car is by choice. To be a victim of a terrorist, is not by choice.
  • frankblizzard 13y ago
    neither is to be a victim of U.S. collateral damage or surveillance
  • ori_b 13y ago
    My friends who were hit while walking across an intersection might disagree. (Fortunately, neither were killed)
  • wmblaettler 13y ago
    The circumstances around a car crash are most certainly not voluntary or by choice. Negligence by other drivers (alcohol, distraction, and other factors) cause deaths to even pedestrians and bicyclists. One could argue that the victims of terrorist attacks are by choice - by choosing to work in a densely populated area or to send a child to school instead of alternative education. I think neither car crashes victims (in accidents caused by others) nor terrorism victims are "by choice". They are victims of circumstance.
  • cyphax 13y ago
    Using your logic, being a victim of terrorism is absolutely a choice. My girlfriend's parents live in Arkansas. In the middle of nowhere. 20 minutes drive to the nearest town that's larger than pop. 50, give or take. No terrorist in their right mind would even consider doing anything there. So just move away from the city, easy peasy. Your choice. I think this logic is flawed and the argument is a weak one.
  • 300bps 13y ago
    I disagree. For the majority of the United States, driving in a car is not a choice - it's a requirement to work. Regardless: In 2013, 1,660,290 people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer. In 2013, 580,350 people are expected to die from cancer. Source: http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-036845.pdf http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurvei... Did these people die by their choice also? Maybe they should have eaten more vegetables and exercised more? That's 116 times more deaths in one year than have died by terrorism in 148 years. If we had 240,000 employees working on cancer prevention, screening, treatment and cures do you think we might be able to bring that cancer death number down by 1%? That would save 5,800 lives per year which is more than the last 148 years have killed by terrorism. (Department of Homeland Security has 240,000 employees, improving screening processes alone would likely reduce cancer deaths by 1% per year).
• kushti 13y ago
  Why this statistics doesn't include victims of US government terrorism? E.g. Vietnam, Iraq etc
• gadders 13y ago
  There would be a bit of a spike in the last 10-15 years though, no?
  • bowlofpetunias 13y ago
    If you only look at the US, maybe just the one spike on that well known date. If you look at the entire Western world as a whole, my guess is that deadly terrorism on the whole has actually decreased pretty dramatically since the 80's.
  • aslakhellesoy 13y ago
    5031 US citizen deaths caused by terrorism in 148 years is 34 per year. US citizen deaths caused by terrorism in 2011: 17 [1] So no, it doesn't seem to have spiked apart from obvious outliers like 9/11. [1] http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2011/195556.htm http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2011/195556.htm
• jbrechtel 13y ago
  While I agree with the sentiment and conclusion I don't think you can build a convincing argument by just looking at numbers of deaths. Terrorism has no value but vehicles do. Unchecked terrorism, ostensibly, begets more terrorism. This is unlikely to be true with vehicle deaths. Terrorism also has effects beyond the deaths and injuries it causes and I'd argue those effects are much larger than the same number of deaths in a vehicle accident.
• Spooky23 13y ago
  Security people don't necessarily think about the past, because it isn't relevant. The death/injury ticker isn't really relevant. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln and post-WW1 anarchist bombings are not related and aren't relevant to today. Security people do think about what motivated individuals can do. If some lunatic with a semiautomatic rifle can massacre dozens of people in a school or movie theater or shut down a major city for days, what could a trained group of fanatics do? There's a nearly limitless number of horrible things that can happen, and many of these things are real risks, just waiting for the right fanatic or lunatic to go for it. The open-ended nature of this anti-terrorist campaign/effort/whatever reflects the open-ended nature of the risk. That said, I think Snowden did a valuable thing. I think the approach the government has taken is too secretive and too much of an overreach. In an attempt to foil terrorists, we're undermining our democracy and the integrity of our institutions.
  • ant512 13y ago
    It's interesting that the response to a lunatic with a semiautomatic is to mount massive internet surveillance rather than, for example, outlaw semiautomatics or provide free mental healthcare.
    • theorique 13y ago
      Or issue more gun permits to lawful, trained gun owners so that citizens can intervene when help is needed, and don't have to wait for the police to arrive.
  • Zigurd 13y ago
    The open-ended nature of this anti-terrorist campaign/effort/whatever reflects the open-ended nature of the risk. The risk is not "open ended" than any other risk. It can be estimated. Objectively, as many others have argued here, the response has been far more costly, destructive, and damaging to institutions and ideals we say we are trying to protect than the threat itself.
• rdouble 13y ago
  If you're going to do a quantitative analysis of the effects of terrorism you'd need to analyze effects other than deaths. 9/11 caused the loss of 430,000 jobs, $40B in insurance payouts, damage to lower Manhattan that still isn't fully repaired, $100B losses in the financial exchanges, probably close to $1T in economic losses total, even before taking into account the misguided wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Likewise, the Boston Marathon bombing was far less devastating than 9/11 but still caused an estimated $333M in damage. It does suck that more people die in car accidents but no single car accident can cause a billion dollars in damage.
  • honzzz 13y ago
    How big part of the damage is caused by the terrorist attack and how big part is caused by (over?)reaction to it? If after each car crash the car traffic in the whole city had to be stopped and people were advised not to leave their homes until the 'hit and run' culprit was caught... how expensive would that be?
    • rdouble 13y ago
      The numbers I gave were the cost of damage alone, not the response.
      • honzzz 13y ago
        I don't know exact numbers but the numbers you provided do not seem to add up. The Boston Marathon bombing caused an estimated $333M in damage directly? I don't think you can do direct damage like that with primitive pressure cooker bomb. And if you count lost human lives (their insurance etc.) than it's comparable to a bus accident or a bit bigger storm. In my eyes the reaction to it still seems like hysterical overreaction. Calculate all deaths caused by car accidents and compare that to the damage caused by terrorism... and it still seems that the 'war on cars' would be more reasonable than war on terrorism.
  • msg 13y ago
    The harm of terrorism or the harm of our irrational response to terrorism? Obviously 9/11 didn't start the Iraq War, President Bush did. He may have done that in a state of belief that the two were connected, but we should not repeat his mistake. It seems odd to me to lump in how much we poured into terrorism over and above the direct damages, and not to lump in with car accidents how much money we pour into auto safety, road maintenance, and so on. The general point is that we over-respond to trauma, both in our daily lives and a macro society level. Clean living is more important and has broader effects on your life than crime, but it is less sexy on the evening news. Just like car safety and terrorism.
• guelo 13y ago
  And of course there's the argument that everybody refuses to talk about with regard to the threat of Islamist terrorism, blowback.
• lightcatcher 13y ago
  > Since 1865, there have been 5,031 deaths and 22,125 injuries caused by terrorism in the United States. Here's another way of spinning the same data: There have been more deaths caused by terrorism in the US in last 15 years than in the prior 135 years. Furthermore, I don't think your comparisons to deaths from car accidents or cancer are completely valid. Those are both phenomena for which induction works well (what has happened previously is a good predictor of what will happen in the future) because the events come from more or less stationary distributions. As illustrated by September 11th attacks, the number of terrorist deaths can double in a single day. There's no reason that this can't happen again with an event with >5k deaths in a single day. For those who have read anything by Nicholas Nassim Taleb: Nicholas Nassim Taleb might argue that terrorist attacks are black swan events (impossible to predict, potentially very large impact) and that the comparision of terrorist deaths (a distribution from Extremistan) to motor vehicle deaths is not very valuable. On the other hand, I don't believe the level of NSA surveillance is appropriate. I'm just trying to illustrate the amount of effort one puts into thwarting something shouldn't just depend on its previous costs, but also on the probability distribution of the event (and your uncertainty in that). tl;dr: Terrorism is more like pg's view of a startup in that it has potential for explosive growth, while motor accident deaths are more like a well established medium sized business.
  • jacquesm 13y ago
    Due to its nature terrorism does not scale well, it's akin to a parasite/host relationship. It could escalate into civil war though, or even regular war between nation states (especially if one nation selects random nation states to attack as a counterstrike). Interesting reading on the subject: http://reliefweb.int/report/world/2012-global-terrorism-index-capturing-impact-terrorism-2002-2011 http://reliefweb.int/report/world/2012-global-terrorism-inde...
    • mixmax 13y ago
      The black swan event of terrorism doesn't need to scale, it's a big one-off event carried out by a few dedicated resourceful people. A nuclear bomb over New York city, smallpox distributed in all Western major airports, or simultaneous nerve gas attacks in a number of major cities.
• sbi 13y ago
  The "5,031" statistic is ludicrous. At least that many people were killed by lynching alone, not to mention Wounded Knee.
• superconductor 13y ago
  Ugh, I know you meant well and are in support of Snowden (as am I) but try not to shoot yourself in the foot when making a point. There's so much wrong with how you framed your argument that I won't bother picking it apart. Again, I know you meant well and I'm on your side. Just don't join a debating team quite yet. P.S. And YAY for Snowden!
• cscurmudgeon 13y ago
  This is a really bad way to do statistical inference. I don't want to go into the n number of ways this is wrong. But, Let me point out another factor that gets ignored in these pointless and wrong bean counting exercises: People are up in arms against terrorism not due to the perceived probability being higher. It is because deaths due to terrorism are wrongful deaths while most others are not.
  • 300bps 13y ago
    It is because deaths due to terrorism are wrongful deaths while most others are not. In 2011, 9,878 people died in drunk driving crashes - one every 53 minutes. Is that not considered wrongful death in your mind? That's twice as many people in one year dying from wrongful death than terrorism has killed in 148 years. If we were treating this wrongful death as seriously as we did terrorism, we'd require breathalyzer starters on every single car. Hell, we'd probably bring back prohibition. Source: http://www.madd.org/drunk-driving/about/drunk-driving-statistics.html http://www.madd.org/drunk-driving/about/drunk-driving-statis... Your lazy fake criticism of the statistics justifiably ignored.
    • mikeash 13y ago
      Let's not forget the roughly 15,000 people murdered each year in the US (which number does not, as far as I know, count drunk driving fatalities). If those don't count as "wrongful death" then nothing does. But nobody cares, because it's a continuous drip instead of a single big event, and because it mostly happens to poor people and minorities.
      • cscurmudgeon 13y ago
        Yes, nobody is doing anything about those 15000 people.
    • cscurmudgeon 13y ago
      Proper inference should consider all available data not just historical data. Just waving around numbers is not correct reasoning from first principles! Correct and proper inference should include present threats, beliefs and intentions of relevant groups. Do you account for that? Just because an axe-wielding madman has not committed any murders in the past, you would not let him be on his own. Just an instant before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, nobody in that city had been killed by an atom bomb. You would probably stare at the bomb dropping on your head waving around stats saying the bomb is not a threat to your existence. "The past never repeats itself precisely; otherwise, historians would be rolling in riches." - James Gipson, Clipper Fund Your comment is a one-way attack on sanity. It would take me a lot of effort to show where you went wrong. It takes you only a bit of effort to be wrong.
• ajays 13y ago
  Notice that the bogeyman of "terrorism" is coming up just as the drug war is winding down (Cali legalized medical MJ in 1996, and this year Colo & Wash legalized it completely for recreational use). The powers-that-be need an everpresent bogeyman to keep us in control.
  • jpttsn 13y ago
    That's a pleasant thought. I think it's more likely we the people want an ever present bogeyman, but that's almost depressing.
• SonicSoul 13y ago
  this is an incredibly short sighted view. A threat should be evaluated on more than just historical performance. I don't agree with fear mongering based on unlikely events, but (much like unlikely financial downfalls) their probability is more than 0%, and possibly that % is significant. Unfortunately this is something that takes a long time to get good at, and resources have to be spent to get there over years of trial and error. the damage done by 9/11 is colossal if you look at the economic and emotional cost. Do you really think it's equal to 2,977 drunk driver deaths? furthermore, it is impossible to measure exactly what is prevented from catching a single terrorist. if 9/11 was thwarted who knows if we'd even hear about it. We don't know what we don't know. so unless you have some insight into what is actually accomplished by anit-terrorism programs it's silly to make such comparisons. Lastly, nobody is saying we should ignore driver deaths. we have the resources to focus on multiple problems at once.
  • mikeash 13y ago
    99% of the damage "done by 9/11" was actually done by the massive overreaction to 9/11. You cannot use the damage done by the overreaction to terrorism to justify the overreaction to terrorism. It's like saying that your immune system's response to an allergen is justified, because just look at how terrible you feel when exposed to that allergen.
    • smm2000 13y ago
      it's more like doing everything possible to avoid allergen because you know that reaction of immune system will be disproportional.
      • mikeash 13y ago
        That's an interesting way to look at it, but it doesn't appear apt to me. These actions look to me like an ongoing reaction to attacks, not rational attempts to reduce the overall impact. In any case, if you can reduce the immune reaction, that's far preferable. I don't see any reason why we can't reduce the overreaction to terrorism.
• corresation 13y ago
  The fallacy of the comparison to heart disease/cancer/traffic accidents is that tremendous resources are spent preventing and then resolving those issues as well. They are side effects of living productively, however, so we can't rationally just ban cars. But we can put hundreds of thousands of officers on the road, and endlessly add regulations and safety features to our vehicles, etc. Snowden is a true hero in the sense of the word -- he is in actual, physical danger for what he has done for others -- however it is not a reasonable argument when people argue that terrorism is a non-issue because <body count> less than <some other body count>. Do you think those who wish to do you harm don't want to exponentially increase that count? If various groups could get a nuclear warhead or dirty bomb, do you really believe they wouldn't use it? If they could sabotage a major city's water supply or a nuclear power plant, do you think that would be below them? This doesn't seek to justify the NSA's all-encompassing surveillance at all (human intelligence is where it is at), however there is an actual possibility that they have actually preventing significant events. But the problem with proactive actions is that no one gives you credit for what didn't happen. As an aside, to add to what others mentioned about the enormous costs and economic damage that resulted from 9/11, for instance, another reason terrorism of even the smallest kind sees a dramatic response is that it is terrorism -- it terrorizes a whole populace. If someone randomly shoots people in parks, there will be a massive response because the impact is on everyone.
  • kybernetikos 13y ago
    > They are side effects of living productively, however, so we can't rationally just ban cars Terrorism and crime are side effects of living freely. > "Do you think those who wish to do you harm don't want to exponentially increase that count?" Not sure how that is relevant. In fact I take it more as an argument for how normal, non-expanded powers have been surprisingly effective at stopping worst-case scenarios.
    • corresation 13y ago
      Terrorism and crime are a side effects of living freely. And I didn't say otherwise. However that there are efforts to combat terrorism always gets compared to the traffic deaths/heart disease/cancer canard. It is a non-starter argument. non-expanded powers have been surprisingly effective at stopping worst-case scenarios Expanded relates to expanded avenues of communications and organization. The NSA moves into collecting data in avenues that "the other side" didn't have not too many years ago. The world evolves on all sides. Further, as the critically important old saying goes: chance favors the prepared. There will come a day that a nuclear weapon gets in the hands of the "wrong" people (e.g. during a breakdown of the government in Pakistan, etc.). That chance event, which thankfully hasn't happened thus far, can have many possible outcomes.
• danenania 13y ago
  What's even worse is that there is an extremely simple, cheap, and constitutional way for US leaders to dramatically reduce the risk of terrorism: stop engaging in aggressive wars and stop supporting corrupt foreign governments. That surveillance systems of unprecedented cost and scope are built while this option is not even considered demonstrates very clearly that the proponents of both militarism and surveillance are not genuinely interested in preventing terrorism but in increasing their own power.
  • vixen99 13y ago
    The question also arises: how effective is the mass surveillance recently revealed? Probably have to wait to see but would a group of intelligent news-aware persons with terrorist intent choose to plan or discuss their malevolent actions via electronic media?
  • deelowe 13y ago
    While I agree with you, it's important to note that every government is corrupt to some degree and the US is forced to participate in these wars as, since the end of WWII, it's been looked upon as the de facto police force of the western world. The US can't simply turn a blind eye to the middle east and let oil prices be used to wage an economic war with all western nations(likely a war we'd lose). And I'm sure there are similar concerns with every other conflict in question. Unfortunately, like all this related to politics, the situation is complicated.
    • scott_karana 13y ago
      > since the end of WWII, it's been looked upon as the de facto police force of the western world Are you sure this isn't an American point of view, assuming the POV of others? I've always gotten the impression that Europe generally treats US military actions with disdain. Maybe it's not reasonable for the US to base their foreign policy on how the US may or may not have been perceived circa 1945.
      • deelowe 13y ago
• czr80 13y ago
  A large part of the response is irrational fear, true, a good example of salience bias. That said, there is a rational argument as well, and that is that terrorism has two special features: - High variance : Even though deaths to date are low, there is a non-zero chance that someone will manage to pull off a very large attack (9/11 is an example, the next one might be a dirty bomb) - Escalation : The point of terrorism is to create fear - if low level attacks don't promote fear the incentive is just to escalate until the attacks reach a point that does trigger a reaction. In other words - you're battling a human opponent and they will adjust their tactics to what you do.
• antitrust 13y ago
  I think this misunderstands the nature of statistics. Those are individuals. I want to do everything we can to prevent the death of anyone who doesn't deserve it (Justin Bieber is off the list). Now, our debate turns to "everything we can." What can we do without defeating ourselves, and defeating the nature of our society, and becoming paranoid shut-ins? My hypothetical question is this: If an AI were watching our emails/texts/phone calls instead of people, and the data never made it to people unless the AI found a strong hit, would that be more acceptable? Sometimes, I prefer the judgment of machines.
• downandout 13y ago
  > Terrorism is nothing but fear mongering to effect an increase in power. This is absolutely true. The shadow of terrorism that our elected officials claim to be chasing is nothing more than a way to vastly increase government intrusions into our daily lives in a publicly palatable way. Everything that is used to "fight terrorism" also happens to be used against our own citizens to pursue increasingly questionable prosecutions - thousands of times more often than used against real life terrorists. Our tax dollars are in fact being used to fund a war - but the war is against us.
• mtgx 13y ago
  And that's if you think this mass spying it's actually working. But so far we haven't seen any evidence that it does. In the vast majority of terrorist "events" they say they've stopped, the mass spying wasn't even essential in learning about them or stopping them. It may have no helped at all. And for so little benefit, they spend hundreds of billions every year, and get the ability to blackmail or threaten anyone in the world. So not only is not "not worth it". It's an extremely dangerous monster that should be slain as soon as possible, before it gets to do much more damage than any terrorist could ever do.
• Homunculiheaded 13y ago
  Regarding your final point, here's a lovely quote that I've found particularly useful recently: "'National Security' is the root password to the Constitution." -- Phil Karn
• ericssmith 13y ago
  As I understand it, the goal of Islamic terrorism (possibly internal anti-government terrorist?) is not to kill people. The objective is to bankrupt countries such as the US. Killing people is just a means to an end.