Civil Liberties Are the Real Targets of Terrorism

By Craig on August 24, 2006 9:19 AM in | 4 Comments

Bruce Schneier's article in Wired News, Refuse to be Terrorized, clearly conveys a message I've long advocated: any reaction to terrorist threats that degrades individual and collective liberties is simply aiding the terrorists' objectives.

The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics.

The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

Read the whole article.

4 Comments

Hal-j | August 24, 2006 1:44 PM | Reply

I have several comments, I'll try to make them all in as few words as possible.


I agree that a good number of the inconveniences related to air travel these days are nothing more than lip service, to make the flying public feel that something is being done. However, that's not to say that a "just get on the plane and don't worry" attitude is correct either.


Looking only at the examples provided (I'm using Schneier's descriptions as I haven't read each article, but even if he didn't accurately describe one, none of his descriptions are so outlandish that it could be said "that'll never happen")


  • Explosive detections (one by a dog, one by means not described) that turned out to be false - So what? Should we not screen for explosives? Should we assume that each positive is false? I'm 110% OK with "err on the side of caution" in these cases. I don't mind bomb sniffing dogs in airports, and I never minded the "let me swap your carryon's zipper" tests. Minor inconvenience and really no liberties lost there.
  • Middle-eastern men wearing leather and looking at watches - OK, different story here. If I were wearing leather and looking at my watch (for those who know me, I'm clean cut these days) would I be a suspected terrorist? No, probably not, so that's not what raised eyebrows. Sitting in an airport lounge checking their watches. How dare they! This is just silly.
  • Locked bathroom doors causes emergency landing - WTF?! Lets see, what's more likely lock malfunction (they're not supposed to close if locked, right?) or some terrorist is having fun, and decided to only trigger a bomb if someone forced the locked door open. Come on, a bit of overreacting here?
  • Bomb threat written on an airsickness bag causes emergency landing - I'm OK with this too. See my "tested positive for explosives" comments.
  • Woman goes nutso on plane - I've read a few articles on this, and I have mixed feelings depending on what I read. If I was in a plane and someone was becoming highly abusive to the flight crew and urinating in the isles, I think I'd rather land and get her removed, if this person is obviously a danger to others on the plane. I'd have felt the same way pre-9-11.

All in all, I think I can sum up my thoughts pretty simply : "Err on the side of caution = Good. Extreme paranoia = bad". I'm OK with a delay caused by the powers that be wanting to double check a positive reading they got on an explosive test. I'm not OK with having to land the plane because the bathroom door was locked. I'm OK with an emergency landing caused by a direct bomb threat being found on the plane. I'm not OK with an emergency landing caused by the fact that someone brought an illicit waterbottle on the plane.


The terrorists haven't won if they have caused us to be more cautious and more careful about how we go about our lives, they've won if they've launched us into a paranoia spiral that ends up with us having to be sedated, stripped, and strapped to beds, before being loaded onto airplanes.

Craig | August 24, 2006 4:30 PM | Reply

Hal, I think you and Schneier agree for the most part. I believe that his primary criticism wasn't taking precautionary action, it was the oversensationalistic actions of both the media and politicians to use these false positives and related non-events to scare us into either (a) tuning into the news more often, or (b) voting for the candidate that's "toughest on terror," neither of which is a healthy or helpful way to react.

Hal-j | August 24, 2006 4:45 PM | Reply

I know he and I aren't too far off, but reading only that one article isn't enough to see that (although reading every link contained may be). I just didn't like how he didn't seperate the "OK, this is the system working properly" from the "WTF?!" in the examples he gave.

That is, what I consider "the system working properly" :)

Bob | August 25, 2006 1:20 AM | Reply

Bruce rocks. I loved his book, Secrets and Lies.

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