So...this morning on my way to work I couldn't help but notice the police officers adorning the entrances/exits of the subway stations.
And it got me thinking which also usually gets me reading...and I read about how NYC police officers are now randomly searching people's bags in the subway stations.
My friend Sarah posed this question: how much do you value your right to privacy over your right to life? Or something along those lines.
And...this is what I think. I know that everyone writes their own feelings ad nauseum (blogs, news outlets, commentators, etc.) but it got me thinking about a column that Ramsin wrote re: how he's pro-privacy. (as a side note, he is one of the smartest and articluate people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing).
For individual policing units in cities around the nation to assume the task of random bag searches to ensure transporation safety from "terrorism" is simply another indication that our intelligence, nationally, and all of the costly Homeland Security measures, aren't succeeeding. Perhaps these searches are giving the allusion that national security is trying. I can't recall a good rational for subjecting individual Americans to such an invasion of privacy, individual Americans who by in large have no say in what national political motivations and policies, which have spurred our terrorism target status.
We all recall how the intelligence was "skewed" for this war in Iraq but the American people really seem to be scared by the attacks fron 9/11 and also from what is happening in the UK. Patriot ACt measures are being made permanent and a conservative (and who really thought it wouldn't be?) nominee for the Supreme Court is mounting the plate all the while, the American population bears a majority support for such actions.
What I fail to understand is how people are so confused about how terrorists can do what they do. Historically its been happening forever...wasn't it in rome where instigators would commit a crime to a roman soldier to send a message, knowingly accepting that he would be killed on spot? And historically the US has been weilding its terror status in various countries for economic power (as well as to continually secure it us as a "superpower"--only in a country like the us could that status be a driving force) for ages. People who live in the middle east see terror from the US every day. Certainly "evil" dictators like Sadaam Hussein are to be stopped, but I remember a time when the UN was more appropriate for measures such as that. People who live in the Sudan right now, particularly women and children, are being subjected to mass genocide every day. Africa itself is a country that has been at war with one another, with terrorist militias (rebel groups) terorizing innocents for years. Yet where has the US been? I don't remember it being on one of the countries to bring our "stop terrorism" cruisade to.
This information is out there. The American people simply need to be reminded that as our freedoms and civil liberties are being widdled away out of fear, that these changes to our "rights" are in no way helping the terrorism problem in a real or global sense. Providing a false sense of security, sure. But that, to use a cliche, is merely a band aid for a bullet wound.
And it got me thinking which also usually gets me reading...and I read about how NYC police officers are now randomly searching people's bags in the subway stations.
My friend Sarah posed this question: how much do you value your right to privacy over your right to life? Or something along those lines.
And...this is what I think. I know that everyone writes their own feelings ad nauseum (blogs, news outlets, commentators, etc.) but it got me thinking about a column that Ramsin wrote re: how he's pro-privacy. (as a side note, he is one of the smartest and articluate people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing).
For individual policing units in cities around the nation to assume the task of random bag searches to ensure transporation safety from "terrorism" is simply another indication that our intelligence, nationally, and all of the costly Homeland Security measures, aren't succeeeding. Perhaps these searches are giving the allusion that national security is trying. I can't recall a good rational for subjecting individual Americans to such an invasion of privacy, individual Americans who by in large have no say in what national political motivations and policies, which have spurred our terrorism target status.
We all recall how the intelligence was "skewed" for this war in Iraq but the American people really seem to be scared by the attacks fron 9/11 and also from what is happening in the UK. Patriot ACt measures are being made permanent and a conservative (and who really thought it wouldn't be?) nominee for the Supreme Court is mounting the plate all the while, the American population bears a majority support for such actions.
What I fail to understand is how people are so confused about how terrorists can do what they do. Historically its been happening forever...wasn't it in rome where instigators would commit a crime to a roman soldier to send a message, knowingly accepting that he would be killed on spot? And historically the US has been weilding its terror status in various countries for economic power (as well as to continually secure it us as a "superpower"--only in a country like the us could that status be a driving force) for ages. People who live in the middle east see terror from the US every day. Certainly "evil" dictators like Sadaam Hussein are to be stopped, but I remember a time when the UN was more appropriate for measures such as that. People who live in the Sudan right now, particularly women and children, are being subjected to mass genocide every day. Africa itself is a country that has been at war with one another, with terrorist militias (rebel groups) terorizing innocents for years. Yet where has the US been? I don't remember it being on one of the countries to bring our "stop terrorism" cruisade to.
This information is out there. The American people simply need to be reminded that as our freedoms and civil liberties are being widdled away out of fear, that these changes to our "rights" are in no way helping the terrorism problem in a real or global sense. Providing a false sense of security, sure. But that, to use a cliche, is merely a band aid for a bullet wound.