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Comment by webwright | Hacker News Reader

How alive is terrorism, really?

How challenging would it be to poison a reservoir, poison random groceries across the country, blow up the Alaska Pipeline, etc. Any motivated terrorist would attack us where we aren't so vigilant. I'm honestly pretty unsure about how many motivated terrorists there are out there-- if there were out there (and well-financed), couldn't they be crippling us with a dozen different types of attacks?

The TSA is like putting your hand on a screen door to keep out the wind. We've got better things to do with our time and money.

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Well evidently it's still occurring in the Middle East, as evidenced evidenced by the attack in Marrakech, Morocco the other day. This also reinforces the point that they don't just kill westerners, they kill muslims as well. Even if it were targeted at westerners, scaring tourists away isn't going to be good for their local economy.

It's certainly true that terrorists will look for a soft target if they want to carry out an attack. Our air security procedures here in Australia aren't so draconian as the US and it hasn't caused us any problems. Though it has resulted in some other draconian policies such as banning photography in certain public places (such as public transport) in the name of terrorist. Because surely a potential terrorist would make themselves stand out by using a blatantly obvious SLR camera rather an an obscure camera hidden in a pocket or a bag. Not to mention they could just memorise what they see and sketch it later.

poison our groceries? I don't think we need terrorists to do it for us. Our corporations don't like competitions

Please stand by. An agent will be with you shortly to answer all your terrorism-related questions.

A terrorist aims to incite terror. They do this by making you feel weak and vulnerable and unsafe, which is not necessarily achieved by poisoning your reservoir.

Someone who just tries to cause as much damage or kill as many people as possible, is not a terrorist. I think they are just known as criminals or militants.

Have you thought through what would happen if a major US city's water system was effectively poisoned? Terror is easily the first word that comes to my mind. Beyond the immediate consequences in the affected city, there's be a HUGE run on bottled water across the country. I for one would feel extremely weak (I have no way to tell if my water is safe), vulnerable (water is a basic requirement, and it might be compromised) and unsafe (no example needed).

Let's put it this way: yesterday an ignorant but worried lady expressed concern that she is going to San Francisco, if the water and seafood are safe and not radiation-poisoned.

The connection being that they're "in the Pacific" same as Japan and Fukushima, and that made her scared.

TV scare-mongering made a lady from Uruguay feel afraid from something that happened literally half a world away from where she's going... if someone poisoned an US city's water, she's never going to the US again for certain.

Really? I depend on drinking water a lot more than airline travel. I think people would freak out pretty fast once they started dropping dead.

... And then they'd drop.

By your definition, the politicians are terrorists. I'm not sure I disagree with that.

> A terrorist aims to incite terror. They do this by making you feel weak and vulnerable and unsafe, which is not necessarily achieved by poisoning your reservoir.

Terrorism is not about terror: http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror

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