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Comment by confuzatron | Hacker News Reader

Al-Qaeda might be fundamentalist arseholes, but they're not stupid.

You're over-generalising; I reckon there are plenty of idiots in Al-Quaeda.

The Al-Qaeda that we have any reason to fear aren't idiots. The idiots will be caught whether or not they have Osama bin Laden candy in their carryons.

THe Al-Qaeda that we have any reason to fear are often using idiots to carry out attacks. Most of them screw up and get caught, or blow themselves up, or chicken out. It's a volume game, and it's very hard to fight.

But we shouldn't fight it by suspecting anyone and everyone. That's like suggesting that we should burn down entire villages, just because we can't be sure which of the local is or isn't an insurgent.

>But we shouldn't fight it by suspecting anyone and everyone.

Does people carrying bullets constitute everyone?

If he'd come from North America with a balaclava, copy of the hackers handbook, candy box featuring a picture of David Koresh and a bullet do you think he wouldn’t have been searched and added to a watch-list?

The population of people traveling to countries populated by terrorists and carrying suspicious articles is much smaller than the general population. If we allow the government to conduct any anti-terrorist programs at all, it makes sense to employ such coarse filters to narrow down the number of people they keep an eye on.

Unfortunately there's no way to conduct surveillance only on guilty people.

Here's one view on the matter:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-case...

and there is plenty of reason to be afraid of an idiot if they have access to bombs.

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