Bad Conclusions

You may have noticed the new flags over in the right-hand sidebar. I put them up because I feel we owe it to Great Britain; hell, I should’ve put up a Spanish flag back when there was the bombing there. After all, these were the people who, on 9/11, said “Today, we’re all Americans.” It’s the least I can do. And besides, Amanda’s a citizen of a Commonwealth nation – an attack on Britain might as well be an attack on Australia, too. (Or Canada, or… well, you get the idea. British colonialism & all that.)

However, there are some things that worry me – I’ve started seeing the signs for some of them already. Mostly I worry about the bad conclusions that our government officials are going to be coming to after this attack. It’s so easy to become “reactionary” to these sorts of things, and that’s just what you don’t want to do. So here’s my list of bad conclusions:

1. “We need to spend more money on protecting trains, buses, & subways.” Wrong, wrong, wrong. As Bruce Schneier says:
   

   We need to resist the urge to react against the particulars of this particular terrorist plot, and to keep focused on the terrorists’ goals. Spending billions to defend our trains and busses at the expense of other counter terrorist measures makes no sense. Terrorists are out to cause terror, and they don’t care if they bomb trains, busses, shopping malls, theaters, stadiums, schools, markets, restaurants, discos, or any other collection of 100 people in a small space. There are simply too many targets to defend, and we need to think smarter than protecting the particular targets the terrorists attacked last week.

   So the minute you see your congressman or senator saying “we need more money for security on America’s subways,” call, write, or email that fucker and tell him/her to get a grip and spend that money instead on stopping/killing terrorists, instead of trying to turn the country into a police state.

2. “We need more security cameras in public places, like they have in London, so we can catch terrorists.” Wrong again. As far as I know, the security cameras haven’t turned up anything yet – and London had them installed in the first place for very different reasons (gang violence, etc.). And even with them, they didn’t act as a deterrent to the terrorists – so in terms of security value, they were pretty much worthless.
3. “We need to turn off cell phone service in subway tunnels, and after any bomb goes off so that other bombs can’t be triggered by remote.” I actually saw a bit on this on the news tonight, and it made me choke. They can’t be serious about this, can they? This will hurt/hinder us more than it will the terrorists. After a disaster, cell phones are a great tool for rescue – I mean, if you’re trapped somewhere, you can literally “call” for help! In the end, the inconvenience suffered by people for this kind of a policy would greatly outweigh any (small) benefit gained for security purposes. And besides, terrorists would just trigger their bombs in another way – radio signals would still work, even without the cell network, and don’t forget that bombs can be put on a timer, so that no signal is required. The only reason cell phones are used to trigger bombs is because they’re cheap & easy. Ban them, turn them off in public places, and terrorists will just find another way around them. It’s NOT a good deterrent.

Those are the bad conclusions that I came up with within hours of the bombings. I’m sure there are more that we haven’t even dreamed of, but that our governments are working on pushing (rushing, actually) into law as we speak (er, read, er, type… whatever). There are some good conclusions to be had, though:

1. Having emergency service people do drills works. The emergency services in London responded wonderfully – thanks to lots of training & drilling. Practice makes perfect.
2. Staying calm during an emergency is good. Lots of injuries were probably prevented in London because those cheeky brits are just so… un-phased by it all. They keep their heads and do what’s necessary – which is really admirable. If life was a Hollywood movie, those people would’ve all panicked and trampled each other to death trying to get out.
3. A little bit of widespread, well-thought out, general security can go a long way. After all, there were no jumbo jets crashing into the Tower of London. It’s obvious that these terrorists are having a hard time carrying out their terrible plans – or else these sorts of things would be happening a lot more often.

And while I’m on the subject, let’s talk briefly about the idea of a national ID. Exactly how would a national ID have helped prevent this attack? The answer is – it wouldn’t have. We’ll know for sure once the forensics come back and the official reports are released, but my guess is that this attack wasn’t carried out by a turban-wearing middle-eastern looking guy with a long, scruffy beard. In fact, it was probably carried out by a normal-looking Caucasian, who was in all likelihood a UK citizen. So before the blathering even begins, let’s just remember how a national ID would not have helped at all in this attack.

That’s all for now. Peace!