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Up and at 'em!
Sep. 20th, 2001 06:55 amWoke up 20 minutes early, which woke up Galina, which got us both up. There'll be enough time to sleep later.
Not having a TV in Houston is almost a blessing. Here in Colorado, while we have ratty reception, we do (or at least I do) end up watching way too much. The media talking heads over the past two days have been building up tonight's speech by the President, but what is being promised is making me itchy.
I hear words such as "long, protracted conflict," which brings back memories of Vietnam. But at least in Vietnam there was an identifiable enemy, kind of. The enemy in this war is being identified as international terrorism, which is a fine and lofty goal, except that terrorists - as we are finding out - are not so easy to identify. The Taliban could hand over bin Laden to the US tomorrow, and that won't do a thing to "stop terrorism." Indeed, a dead bin Laden could become a martyr figure to terrorists who have wedged themselves into societies all over the world.
Worse, from the point of view of civil liberties, is determining when the battle is won. This is important, as I would not be surprised to see pretty major changes in the area of civil liberties being proposed in tonight's speech. Nothing concrete, just general principles and maybe an example or two that won't - on their face - annoy too many people. Maybe even a hint that the measures are temporary.
But ultimately, given the nature of the task ahead, I think those changes (none of them in the direction of increased civil liberties) will have to become more and more draconian.
Without a doubt, I think, a national identity document will be instituted, with concomitant DNA sampling of every citizen. This number may be used universally, not only for identification at airports and for medical purposes, but also for commercial transactions (so that people buying dangerous goods and dangerous combinations of goods can be tracked and found). Along the same lines, after a few more attacks - do you doubt they will occur? - I would not be surprised to see requirements imposed, for example, that would require government permission to travel by air or rail or even highway. (Ridiculous? Something similar was seriously considered by the Clinton administration.)
The ongoing fight against government-decreed encryption technology (also prosecuted by Clinton - remember the Clipper chip?) will, I think, be settled decisively in favor of the government, seeing as how the government's only strength over the past two decades has been in so-called "signals intelligence" (i.e., a bunch of guys sitting around, drinking coffee and using massive amounts of technology to listen to what the world is saying).
You may consider the allegation that Microsoft's Flight Simulator may have helped the WTC attackers train for their "mission" to be absurd, but I would not be surprised to see such product features to be gutted in the future, perhaps by decree. This would go well with the idea - which has been considered for a while - of making certain types of software illegal to own, e.g., port scanners and such (see my post of 10/26/00).
This leads to the general area of restricting information flow to the general population, which would involve tighter control of the Internet and restrictions on what kinds of information could be made available.
I fear none of these changes will be temporary (some would be irreversible on their face), as the threat of terrorism will always loom, and I really hope I'm wrong, wrong, wrong about where tonight's speech will lead, but I just cannot shake the feeling that liberty and freedom are about to take some serious body blows.
Cheers...
Not having a TV in Houston is almost a blessing. Here in Colorado, while we have ratty reception, we do (or at least I do) end up watching way too much. The media talking heads over the past two days have been building up tonight's speech by the President, but what is being promised is making me itchy.
I hear words such as "long, protracted conflict," which brings back memories of Vietnam. But at least in Vietnam there was an identifiable enemy, kind of. The enemy in this war is being identified as international terrorism, which is a fine and lofty goal, except that terrorists - as we are finding out - are not so easy to identify. The Taliban could hand over bin Laden to the US tomorrow, and that won't do a thing to "stop terrorism." Indeed, a dead bin Laden could become a martyr figure to terrorists who have wedged themselves into societies all over the world.
Worse, from the point of view of civil liberties, is determining when the battle is won. This is important, as I would not be surprised to see pretty major changes in the area of civil liberties being proposed in tonight's speech. Nothing concrete, just general principles and maybe an example or two that won't - on their face - annoy too many people. Maybe even a hint that the measures are temporary.
But ultimately, given the nature of the task ahead, I think those changes (none of them in the direction of increased civil liberties) will have to become more and more draconian.
Without a doubt, I think, a national identity document will be instituted, with concomitant DNA sampling of every citizen. This number may be used universally, not only for identification at airports and for medical purposes, but also for commercial transactions (so that people buying dangerous goods and dangerous combinations of goods can be tracked and found). Along the same lines, after a few more attacks - do you doubt they will occur? - I would not be surprised to see requirements imposed, for example, that would require government permission to travel by air or rail or even highway. (Ridiculous? Something similar was seriously considered by the Clinton administration.)
The ongoing fight against government-decreed encryption technology (also prosecuted by Clinton - remember the Clipper chip?) will, I think, be settled decisively in favor of the government, seeing as how the government's only strength over the past two decades has been in so-called "signals intelligence" (i.e., a bunch of guys sitting around, drinking coffee and using massive amounts of technology to listen to what the world is saying).
You may consider the allegation that Microsoft's Flight Simulator may have helped the WTC attackers train for their "mission" to be absurd, but I would not be surprised to see such product features to be gutted in the future, perhaps by decree. This would go well with the idea - which has been considered for a while - of making certain types of software illegal to own, e.g., port scanners and such (see my post of 10/26/00).
This leads to the general area of restricting information flow to the general population, which would involve tighter control of the Internet and restrictions on what kinds of information could be made available.
I fear none of these changes will be temporary (some would be irreversible on their face), as the threat of terrorism will always loom, and I really hope I'm wrong, wrong, wrong about where tonight's speech will lead, but I just cannot shake the feeling that liberty and freedom are about to take some serious body blows.
Cheers...
