"an act of terrorism" == "an act of the devil"
The war on terrorism is our witch-hunt.
I'm not saying what happened in the article is okay, nor am I saying things like PRISM and the PATRIOT Act are necessary sacrifices for the war on terror, but there are people in the world who do very very bad things to innocent people.
That number is trivial compared to other causes of death. Here's a sampling of some death statistics from the year 2006 [2]:
Fireworks discharge: 8
Fall on and from stairs and steps: 1,818
Bitten or struck by dog: 32
Contact with venomous snakes and lizards: 8
Accidental drowning and submersion: 3,579
Exposure to electric transmission lines: 93
Transport accidents: 48,412
Contact with hot tap-water: 32
Terrorism: 0
[1](http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/wrjp255a.html)
[2](http://www.nsc.org/news_resources/injury_and_death_statistic...)
You might not like it, but the efforts are not trivial.
You're looking at the number of terrorism incidents AFTER efforts to mitigate them, and then concluding it's not a real issue. That's like saying that vaccinations aren't important because we haven't had a large number of Measles incidents lately.
We absolutely need better information, as citizens, to help weigh the relative success of these programs, but pretending to be sure that they aren't affecting the numbers is silly.
the question here whether there are EFFECTIVE efforts. As Boston Marathon shows - no. Like in other times and other countries, anybody who wants is still able to commit such atrocious terrorist acts, despite the EXTENSIVE efforts. Governments just like EXTENSIVE efforts.
I agree that we need to know more about the efforts to understand if they're working.
I disagree that the small number of terrorist attacks is evidence that the efforts we're using to combat the attacks aren't necessary.
Still, I can't help but hypothesize that the primary reason terrorism is such a rare occurrence in America is because intelligent people living comfortable lives without mental illness (read: the vast majority of the US) very rarely want to kill en masse. Or kill at all, really. If the opposite were true, I highly doubt our current counter-terrorism efforts would be good enough to prevent disaster after disaster.
For example, we were completely unable to predict and prevent events such as the Colorado theater shootings, the Newtown school shootings, the marathon bombings, etc. And the list of foiled Islamic plots since 9/11 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foiled_Islamic_terroris...) can almost be counted on two hands.
Our justice system promises pretty severe retribution on those who would commit acts of terrorism against US citizens. The threats of ostracism, humiliation, prison time, and execution act as deterrents, because we've proven again and again that they're basically inescapable. Consequently, most reasonable people don't even consider terrorism.
It seems to me that punishing the guilty is far more effective than spying on the innocent.
Thought experiment: imagine if half of these foiled plots had occurred. In other words, imagine if every 6 months or so we had a terrorist attack that killed a dozen people (and sometimes more).
Do you think the American public would take the HN line that it's still a very small number of total deaths, similar to the number of people dying from hot tap water? Or would they elect politicians with a very aggressive anti-privacy regime that would be "necessary" to eliminate these routine acts of terror?
At the end of the day, politicians are elected by the people, and I suspect that even the best politician would need to have a somewhat aggressive surveillance regime purely to avoid being replaced by someone who would throw caution to the wind in response to routine attacks.
I'm sure someone will respond that there are basically no real thwarted attacks, but I don't believe that. The Wikipedia article you posted reflects my sense of the frequency of attempted attacks. You can also claim that these attacks would have been thwarted without any surveillance, but that isn't my understanding of how law enforcement works in general.
What we should be pushing for is a far more open understanding, by the citizenry, of the scope of data collection and how that data can be used by law enforcement operations.
The conditions of your thought experiment are not realized but the American public still reacts as you hypothesise they would if terrorist attacks were a semi-annual occurrence.
People are fucking awful at reasoning about rare but dramatic events. This should come as a surprise to nobody.
I think the methods used to sniff out terrorism are the same as they used to be, except now government agencies want to spy on everyone instead of just suspected terrorists.
Not to mention that every method we know about to stop terrorism since 9/11 has been reactionary; it has been a reaction to something that already happened. Not something that could happen.
I feel no safer from terror attacks now than I did before 9/11. Truth is, I never worried about them before and I don't worry about them now. It just doesn't happen that often. As stated, I'm tens of thousands of times more likely to die in a car ride on the way to a building that will be bombed than to die in the bombing itself.
If you don't believe that, let's stop enforcing traffic safety laws, stop requiring manufacturers to include safety features in their cars, and stop designing traffic intersections with safety in mind and see what happens.
But, to me, this means that the national security apparatus should be exclusively focused on reducing the probability of those most-terrible events, and instead leave the small-scale stuff to standard law enforcement. I.e., if the # of deaths is almost certainly < 200 (say), normal law enforcement procedures apply. If more than 500, then every resource can and should be brought to bear to prevent it.
And we have some very good laws to deal with that. Laws against murder for example. I think the analogy between 'terror' and 'devil' is a good one, because it captures the almost mystical 'special' evil that 'terrorist' implies. It's a childish, primitive term, with the same kind of semantic effect as the word 'baddie' in reference to an action movie.
There is people indeed who does very very bad things to innocent people, and many of them are in the USA government.
Posts like yours show how effective the governments' brainwashing is. Lots of innocent people dies in war bombings, and they're not necessary.
Do you have any idea of how many people died at the hands
Add in "terrorism" and it becomes completely non-deterministic. The charges may as well be completely invented. There is literally no way to predict the punishment any particular action might provoke. The complete failure of the rule of law. It's just rule by fiat.
Indeed, you have broken your own rule and left your comment open for easy misinterpretation.
> Indeed, you have broken your own rule and left your comment open for easy misinterpretation.
Have I? What's easy to misinterpret?
However, I've never interpreted our community to be like that. On this forum I don't expect to hear
The discrepancy between how much jail time the people who upset the government get, and the people who commit real crimes is getting bigger
without evidence any more than I expect to hear
database server X is becoming faster than database server Y
without evidence.
I think you would do well to answer that question first, as your question presupposes this question has already been answered, when it fact it has not.
Asking why X is superior to Y is nothing more than an attempt to place the burden on someone else rather than yourself. You presupposed that Y is superior to X without any proof being offered.
It's akin to me asking you "When did you stop beating your wife," or other questions like that.
> Have I? What's easy to misinterpret?
So, specifically, with your statements, you make it seem like you've already proven your side, when in fact, you've done no such thing. It's disingenuous and manipulative. So, either you meant to be that way (dishonest), or you simply made a mistake of not backing up your opinion (What you are arguing against).
So, considering the later is what you are arguing against, it's very easy to assume you are simply trying to be dishonest. I'd like to think better of HN, and assume that people generally speak their opinion, and only assume they are speaking fact when they are providing sources or it's something I also know about.
> Well, I prefer the latter because it leads to a community where I can take more posts at face value and thus learn quicker.
Their is asking for clarification, and asking for clarification rudely, which is what I saw happening, as did others, I imagine. Their is value in asking for citations, no one questions that. The GP was clearly stating an opinion based on his own observations. The question in response was of little value because it was merely being antagonistic.
> I don't think it's unreasonable to encourage this kind of behaviour.
Peppering phrases with weasel words? People should just say what they think, rather than qualify every statement with qualifying statements. Case in point:
> It seems to have very little cost.
Citation needed.
> > It seems to have very little cost.
> Citation needed.
Yes you're right. I should have said "I think it seems to have very little cost".
We are. That you are confused is clear by other remarks, and it's almost time for GoT, so I don't feel like spending the time restating what has already been said.
> I should have said...
I know what you meant. I didn't really need a citation. I've already made it clear my stance on the matter.
However, that you would make such an error and then question whether we are talking about the same issue should be troublesome for you. In a topic on this very subject, you yourself can't meet your own standards of clarity. So, if you said something different then what you meant, how can you presume to understand those that attempt to hold conversations with you?
It's far easy to assume opinion then to assume perfect English. Especially on a board where English is not always the first language, and the subtleties of "It seems to have very little cost" and "I think it seems to have very little cost" is meaningless to all but a rare few.
What is wrong is nitpicking apart the nuanced difference when it was just a casual intelligent comment made in a social setting, where reasonable expectation is to get the point rather than belabor its numerous subtle variants pursuant to wanton misinterpretation.
This is an article about their prosecution. Prosecutors push for the maximum sentence that they can possibly get, and have done so since the dawn of time. Whether or not they are _actually_ sentenced depends on the judge.
As far as I can tell, this is a hit-piece by the defense team of these three individuals to drum up public support, and hope for a reduced sentence.
One: how did that work out for Aaron Swartz? I'm asking because the same BS was said in the defence of the prosecutors actions then.
Second: Citation needed, that prosecutors have "since the dawn of time" pushed for the same kind of sentences in the same kind of cases. Merely pushing for a little more doesn't qualify -- this is an extreme blow up of the actual offence here.
Third: I'm appalled by your casual dismissal of this, as "it's how it's always been". Even with the actual sentencing depending on the judge, this over-blowing of offences is a moral and legal problem that should stop. The prosecutors should push for the sentence that is appropriate to the crime, as they perceive it, not to "the maximum sentence they can possibly get". Their job is to serve justice, not to put as many people in jail as they can.
Fourth: Who said that asking for the "maximum sentence" is a harmless tactic? Who said it doesn't impact the jury's decision and the sentence that the judge will give? If the offence is something that should get 10 years in prison, and they ask for life, then maybe this will provoke a sentence of 15 years. The same tactic also can lead to innocent people plea to guilty, instead of risking a potential 5 or 10 years in prison (where they would actually take their chance for their actual lower appropriate sentence).
No one knows how Aaron Swartz's case could have ended up. All we know is that he gave up... in the way that hurt his friends and family the most.
Prosecutors push for the maximum because we have an adversarial system in the USA. It is the prosecutor's job to push for the worst, and it is the Judge / Jury's job to decide when the prosecutor has gone too far. It is the defense team's job to argue against the prosecutor.
If you don't know what an "adversarial system" is, start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_system
It is the Judge and jury's job to give the correct sentence, not the prosecutor's job.
Computer crimes cause more damage than in the past.
http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/09/hacker-faces-more-jail-time...
The problem though is that if you go back more than a few decades, it is not clear the trend is downward so much as cyclical.
How do you know that monopoly is an old game - because the rich also go to jail.