Using technology to stop terrorism

1. your reactionary, and you're probably terrified of the swine flu. Also, most of what you said is idiotic, I'm responding to the first post in the thread, if you'd actually read it, you'd understand that.

2. I addressed the fact that it was a social issue, not a weapons one. you didn't read that either though. You weren't paying attention, And wanting to label someone a terrorist? that's stupid. And reactionary. You'd make a really good scared huddled mass for the evening news, boost their ratings.

3. it is impractical, Any sort of technological means is impractical at that school, and most of the schools in this district. and, guess what! the only incidents here have been non-violent (idiot kid wanting to show off for his friends) or someone ditching school, and then showing up in the middle of the day. Which, btw, none of these methods would do shit for.

4. If I were as terrorist, I'd poison the food supply, it's much more vulnerable. NAFTA minimizes investigation of packaged foods manufactured in certain south american countries and canada, it's work, and you saw how long it took to track down those damn salmonella peanuts. It'd take months to trace it, and you'd get away scott free, because there would be no way to tie anyone to it. the factory would be closed down, sure, but how many south american factories have surveillance cameras to get pictures of their workers that homeland security can use?

I'm not a terrorist, I just solve puzzles, better than you do. Also, I wouldn't eat tic tacs if you're REALLY afraid of terrorism.

5. I've formed these views from actually having opinions of my own, not those that were handed to me by media, I was on the rifle team, the shit I had to go through to get a left handed gun to school was INCREDIBLE

It would be fucking hard to do a massacre with a single shot bolt action rifle. But, You wouldn't know that, would you? do you even know anything about guns? or are you just scared of them?

further, I saw a guy arrested for having knives (cooking knives) visible in the back seat of his car, he was standing in the theater, he had no intent to use them for anything, but the paranoid fucks that are people like you, felt the need to arrest him


6. SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH WAS CARRIED OUT WITH FUCKING BOX CUTTERS!
You can still carry box cutters at most schools, you shouldn't show them off, but, hell, you conceal it properly, you're golden. Do you really want to argue that we need "weapon detection" I mean, you could kill someone with a pencil if you REALLY wanted to. What are we going to do? take all the pencils from kids?

 

My goodness. You're good for calling people ugly names and rattling on and on about how smart you are.

I don't care what you've "seen". Anyone who advocates carrying guns in schools is crazy.

But then, you unable to comprehend how pencils might be just the teeniest bit different from guns as a terrorist tool.

 

I don't want to be spied on, either. But what about my fundamental right to go about my business without being terrorized by gun-totin' whackos?

 

Dave the techie, it's too bad you couldn't discuss this issue in a reasonable, adult manner. Everyone else was able to.

And it's ironic that you think you know how the other poster would think about anything, because you are an absolute profiler's delight. Here's the picture .... open hostility, a chip on your shoulder borne of righteous indignation that you're right and everyone else is wrong, a right-wing gun freak who believes the solution to the world's problems is guns, guns, and more guns. Are you a loner, too? Bingo, you fit the profile. You're seriously scary, dude.

And I concur wholeheartedly with the previous poster about guns in schools. How incredibly irresponsible.

 

Nobody said anything about spying on you, Zombie. It's just a discussion of using advanced technology to thwart terrorist acts at the point of attack, instead of thinking that some bizarre war halfway around the world that's been going on for eight years with no end in sight will have the slightest effect on the potential for terrorism.

Until Dave the techie turned this thread into a personal soapbox for his weird gun agenda, the discussion was at least rational.

If you want to get into the issue of infringing on personal liberties, by all means ... let's talk about that. It's a perfectly reasonable concern. But I think my solution is a hell of a lot less infringing than the so-called Patriot Act, which basically gives the government carte blance to do any damn thing it pleases, including spying on you, if it thinks you might be a terrorist. At least with my approach, there's no encounter at all until you physically arrive at the venue in question.

And if you read through my earlier posts, you'll see that I'm not necessarily talking about metal detectors. I'm talking about something more high tech than that. What it is, I don't know. Perhaps it's not even feasible at all. But all I'm saying is take a fresh look at it. Recruit some smart young engineers and let 'em tackle it, see what they come up with.

Good lord, for 1% of what that war costs, they could probably come up with something that's at least 75-80% effective, as opposed to basically zero percent effective now.

Why would anyone argue against that?

 

At the risk of sounding conspiratorial, in my view the patriot act, war on terrorism, etc have very little to do with fighting terrorism.
I'll leave it at that.

ZW eace:

 

Well, pffft. That's exactly what I said in the very first post of this thread.

 

You can't tell the difference between a bolt action rifle and an ar-15.

About the same distance of distinction in the right\wrong hands.

Also, you're ability to argue effectively is hampered by your need to couch everything in your emotional baggage, instead of direct and concise points. that hurts your credibility in the long run, except for in audiences without the capability to critically examine real audiences, but then you just have a hysterical mob, and they don't matter until elections, and they're just dangerous.

I'm responding to the original post.

the thread wandered off topic, that's not my fault. It is simply how things happen, but it's not weird, it's a reasonable response to the first post, and the posts that have been made in response to mine subsequent to that.

it's also not a strange argument.

people are just becoming far too reactionary toward guns, and not examining the deeper social issues that cause the violence they are linked to

most gun violence occurs in poor neighborhoods, not because there are more guns there, but because, gee, there are more poor people there.

that's a social problem.

We should be spending money on things like that (similar to your own argument) instead of all of these toys that don't actually work.

Air india flight 401, it's cargo was scanned with bomb sniffers VERY similar (if less advanced than) to the ones that are used in airports today, a bomb still got on board that plane. The plane still crashed.

The explosive detector even went off!

training is a social issue, poverty is a social issue, hell, the sikh's wanting a homeland and the terrorist group that sprung up from that which bombed air india 401, that's a social issue

Toys don't solve social issues

Addressing social issues helps to solve social issues.

Right now a lot of hippies\anti violence activists are against sending more troops to afghanistan, because they don't understand why the generals want more troops.

They want more troops to deal with

you guessed it


SOCIAL ISSUES!

"Armed Social Workers" that's what general mcchrystal calls them.

if we don't get that troop surge, then it will become a much more militant, and a much less socially responsible mission, But people who want less violence, are protesting it, because they make this fucked correlation "more boots on the ground = more violence"

when, in this case, it's the exact opposite.

My argument is actually quite in line with this thread, you just have failed to actually pay attention, and I must say, shame on you.

 

You still don't get it at all, I see. You have quite a nerve talking about someone else's "emotional baggage".

And no, it was you who felt the compulsion to go off on your mindless rant about guns.

No matter. I'll bow out. You can argue with yourself. According to you, you're the only one who knows anything, anyway.

 

Naw, you just said it's a waste of time... I'm saying it's all very effective.

Very effectively keeping us all very,very afraid and preventing us from focusing on real domestic issues and the stupendous corruption of our political leaders!

ZW

 

Ahh, now you're sounding conspiratorial!

 

:leaving:



zw

 

The problem with the "war on terror" is that it doesnt actually cure the cause of terrorism. Come back to that later

The war on terror was sold to the US public like it was a classic war with frontlines - and later, like it was a decentralised war with many small, confined locations. however, that is all wrong. in fact, the US army has stubled into a partisan scezario when invading afghanistan and the iraq and is under attack from all sides, fom different interest groups and is facing the very same problem every incading army always had: they cant seize their attackers.

so, to clarify this: the US in afghanistan and iraq may be calling their opponents "terrorists", but in fact they arent (pls check the internet for the change of meaning of the word "terror", starting with robspierre and the french revolution). it is very dangerous what the US have started when calling every opposition they faced "terrorists". for one, those "terrorists" they face in afghanistan and the iraq are memebers of different faction - shiits factions, sunnit factions and many more. in order to restore order, the US actually should speak with those faction and negotioate - no negotioation with "terrorists" however takes away a vital possibility.

on the other hand, now coming back to the beginning of my text, modern terrorism is triggered and supported by bad economical and social surroundings - which creates just the right environment for certain, radical, ideologies to grow. now, bombing the shit out of this sort of environment will automtically trigger an exponential growth of supporters to more radical causes - when you live in hell, you support the devil.

now, if anything, the US war on terror has actually supported terrorist movements, not harmed them. and no, this war wont stop any terrorist from doing anything in the US itself.

 

You're right, but that will never happen. It's like trying to "cure" poverty or ignorance. And for that matter, there are a thousand and one "causes" of terrorism, and even if you cured every one of them today, there will be new ones tomorrow.

What I'm saying is ... whatever the cause, we need to stop it at the point of attack. What does a war in Afghanistan have to do with Timothy McVeigh or the Virginia Tech shooter or the Salt Lake City mall shooter? A war halfway around the world isn't going to stop them. And clearly, it's not just jihadist radicals that are the problem.

What we need is some new technology to detect the weapons or the behavior or something. All I'm suggesting is to put a skunkworks together and see what they come up with. What we're doing now (e.g., better intelligence and information sharing) is better than nothing, but it isn't enough. It's still too easy for some whacko to slip into a shopping mall or school or church and start something.

 

yes and no. actually it IS possible to have environments that dont support terrorists and radical ideologies. naturally you can never rule out that individuals will go bonky, but if you look at those terrorists the US focus on (near east) i can savely gurantee you that 90% of these terrorists wouldnt be terrorists if it wasnt for the environment they are in.

but beside that, there arent that many terrorists as you seem to think.... 1001 reasons to become a terrorist may exist, but there has to be a combination of quite a few factors that acutally create a "terrorist" - and that doesnt happen very often. again, the problem is what ppl in the US see as "terrorists" - seemingly it has become a term for about everyone being designated as enemy of the US, i mean now there are terrorist - countries, terrorist - regions,... which is, simply said, bullshit. the thing you fiew as "classic terrorist" doesnt exist as often as you may believe - in most cases, groups that have seperatist goals (like in spain, ireland, pakistan,...) or ethinkal - nationalist factions (iraq, tamil,...) or are reactionary movements (afghanistan) have been redesignated to be "terrorists" to make the war on them more understandable after 911.

the real terrorist cells and organisations like al quaida are very very few in personell and power - and those groups cant be fought with conventional weapons and armys... taking them out with intelligence ops is possible, but attacking a whole country wont hurt them - in the contrary, it will even strenghten them.

were those terrorists? or just individuals going bonkers?

the problem with what you are suggesting is that these sort of surveilance of the populance will probably result in a totalitarian surveillance system. do you have any idea what kind of power an organisation /gouverment hold in hand if they are allowed to monitor the populance? where does "prevention" stop then? yes, first thing will be that some shootings will be reported to have been stopped by intervention of said body. but then? get one or 2 corrupt/powerhungry ppl inside, or another 911 and suddelny ppl will be chased because of their political fiews, their ancestry or their looks.

what you suggest very much reminds me of the STASI or SD ... and you really dont want something like that in your country.

 

Who said anything about a "totalitarian surveillance system"? As I have pointed out at least three or four times now, I'm talking about a better way to detect when some whacko has a weapon that can be used to terrorize a gathering of people.

I don't know how to express it any clearer than that.

Ok, I've said what I've have to say on this subject. I'll not return to this thread.

 

well, you obviously haven thought about that until the end. first of all, how to identify a "whacko"? you have to get profiles and you have to gather intelligence, since you dont target someone specific.

sure, i really believe you when you say you just imagine some kind of metal detector - well, such things exist, and they can and have been tricked bevore.. .
also, a metal detector doesnt prevent anyone from shooting from distance.

i can only advice you to think everything to the end bevore suggesting such things..

 

You don't know anything about the profile, profilers, or how any of that works

You think you do because of the evening news. but you really have no idea.

I'm quite a distance from the profile, which you haven't ever read, you're just pretending to have knowledge you don't because you do not understand why I think like I do, or why I am posting as I am. I am posting in a very adult way, you're just too slow to keep up.

I guess obsolescence has it's toll.

 

Use technology for peace.
peace comes from happiness.
happiness can happen with a minimum of goods.

the monetary system destroys all of these things

 

I think we should use the latest technology in tracking terrorists.

But..... who's a terrorist? An upset American citizen who wants to abolish (legally, Dec. of Independence!!) our government? How drastic of measures do we take? How much freedom are you willing to give up for security?