Why "make it easy" for terrorists?

In a perfect example of how the fear of terrorism combines with anti-technology prejudice, some "experts" have been calling for restrictions on cell phone technology:

mobile telephones have a lot of features that make them attractive to would-be bombers. Making them unable to send or receive calls helps, but it doesn't disable the precise timers, or make the batteries themselves less explosive.

Melamed admits if they couldn't use cell phones, "Terrorists would find some way to attack us."

But he adds: "Let's not make it so easy."

Cell phone service was later restored in the Brooklyn-Battery and Queens-Midtown tunnels after the original move by authorities to pull the plug on cell phone service in the four tunnels into and out of Manhattan in response to terrorist bombings in London.

The transmitters that provide wireless service in the Holland and Lincoln tunnels are still off.

Cell phones have been fashioned into detonation devices in bombings in Madrid and elsewhere. But when cell service is cut in tunnels, drivers can't dial 911.

Great. Maybe if we return to stone age technology, we'll all be safer.

Fortunately, this "expert" has been fisked by another cellphone expert possessed of some common sense:

Well, the media love to confuse cause and effect and blame technology for all our woes. Despite the fact that potential terrorists could indeed use other tools (like alarm clocks) to set off bombs, we have an attempted lynching of the mobile phone.

When Richard Reid aka The Shoe Bomber tried unsuccessfully to smuggle explosives onto a plane in his shoe, no one called for shoes to be banned.

When Timothy McVeigh planted a truck bomb in Oklahoma City, no one called for the banning of trucks.

But on the basis that a mobile phone could set off a bomb, we should ban the alarm functions on mobile phones?

It's like blaming the internet. And there's a lot of that going around too. Not only are simple electronic timers already available in the form of tiny alarm clocks, but ready-to-wire delay timer eproms are freely available at Radio Shack. Never mind; the goal here is to "make it harder" for terrorists by making it harder for everyone else.

But I'll go one further than this expert. Rather than blaming the cell phones which can be used as timers, I blame the targets themselves for being there!

CLOSE THE SUBWAYS! STOP ALL TRAINS! CLOSE ALL AIRPORTS!

Why not?

After all, architectural experts like James Howard Kunstler (and his friends at the New York Times) blame tall buildings for being there, and propose eliminating them or making them smaller. Isn't the same logic equally applicable to trains and subways?

So why stop short with feel-good, band-aid approaches like banning cell phones?

There are a lot of things we could do to make things harder if not impossible for terrorists. As pointed out above, after Timothy McVeigh used a rented truck, nothing was done to prevent such a disgraceful incident from happening again.

All truck and car bombing could easily be stopped -- right now -- by banning all cars and trucks. Didn't our ancestors get along for thousands of years without the colturned things? I say it's a small price to pay to make the world safe.

I realize that this wouldn't stop pedestrian terrorists from blowing themselves up in crowds, but again, that's just another problem with another simple solution:

  • Make it illegal for people to congregate in groups of more than three.
  • Close all shopping centers and prohibit all public gatherings and events.
  • Establish 24 hour curfews on all streets.
  • Close all churches and schools.
  • Really, it doesn't take much imagination to stop terrorists. It requires only that we get over this American obsession with the freedom thing.

    It's about time we start asking the hard questions, such as what good is freedom if it merely supplies targets for terrorists?

    If we eliminate the targets by making these and other necessary sacrifices, only then can we be truly safe.

    I don't see how the terrorists could win.

    posted by Eric on 07.18.05 at 09:21 AM





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    Comments

    To take it even further, human beings as such are tempting targets for terrorists. Blame it on Adam and Eve, or the Devil. Or their Creator.

    Or, if we don't want to be blasphemous, then maybe we could go back to blaming terrorism on terrorists instead of on their targets or their tools.

    I once read this in the John Birch Society's American Opinion:
    "A Communist assassinates the President with a rifle. Liberal solution: Outlaw all rifles. Conservative solution: Outlaw all Communists."

    The style of that!

    Which reminds me of an old story that Professor Willmoore Kendall (the style of his name!) liked to tell and that I often like to think about. He was attending some kind of conference on ways to deal with the problem of Communists in America. The Negro janitor who was cleaning his room asked him:

    "Professah, is it true -- is it true dat -- dat dere's people in New York who want to - to destroy de guvamint of de United States?"

    "Yes, Oliver, that is true."

    "Den -- den why don't we just lock 'em up?"

    And Willmoore Kendall remarked that there was more wisdom in that Negro janitor than in all the other political science professors and civil libertarians he had been arguing with during that conference.

    The style of that!.... General Oliver Willmoore Kendall....

    That's the solution.... ban people. No more people, no more terrorism....

    Grumpy   ·  July 18, 2005 09:31 PM

    This is crazy. What about the passengers on Flight 93 who were able to call their loved ones on 9/11, find out about the attacks, and act against the hijackers?

    Johnathan   ·  July 19, 2005 07:40 AM

    Good Service

    Frank Johnson   ·  July 22, 2005 07:12 AM


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