Trading civil rights for a safer society...

[mrph]

Various politicians and columnists seem to be talking about how swapping some civil rights for increased protection from terrorists is a fair trade.

There are lots of reasons why I don't agree with that, but here's one of the main ones: would it actually work? Has anyone got a case study, an example of a country that's actually done this and seen some tangible benefits as a result?

Because right now, I'm having real trouble thinking of one...

Comments

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

This is my essential beef with all the money that gets spent on "anti-terrorism." Not a jot of it prevents actual terrorist acts. At best, it makes the less analytical feel moderately safer - when they are, in fact, in as much danger as before. While that's great PR for a government, it's crap for the folks whose lives are actual in danger when they don't know it. All the big shows and displays I've seen are laughably easy to get around. I recall when the rivets in my jeans set off the metal detectors at JFK after the security crackdowns. They had me stand, unattended, in the middle of the streaming mass of folks headed to planes, surrounded by a flimsy plastic cordon. Had I had some small contraband (an ampule, say, or a single piece of a firearm), passing it to a co-conspirator would not be difficult. Or, again, if I were a suicide bomber, I'd be prevented from blowing up a plane... and instead I'd blow up the terminal and all the people headed to that same plane.

And of course, you can't have knitting needles or nail trimmers on a plane now. That's some clever thinking. Imagine half a dozen terrorists threatening a plane full of passengers and possibly an armed marshall with knitting needles. Frankly, since 9/11, I like to think that even the astonishingly complacent American populace realizes that if a terrorist these days gets control of your plane, you're going to die. And I'd like to think, that being so, enough people would be willing to risk death to prevent certain death, and overwhelm the aggressors.

But the paradigms never update fast enough. The current war is always fought based on the tactics of the last one. And it's going to take a lengthy period for the foolishness to become obvious and something to be done about it. The US would never be willing to learn from any other country. I remember the initial response to the bombings, when I thought "Well, now might be the time to consult with the many, many other nations of the world that have dealt with exactly this kind of problem. This is, comparative to the size and wealth of America, not much bigger than the regular problems elsewhere." But of course, there was no conception that we might similar study violence elsewhere. America is too special, we're too different. We've got our own way of doing things.

And it's a stupid way, in the end.