I remember reading about how Lebanon's cellular phone providers are deeply in bed with Hezbollah, as just one example. Likewise with the Taliban working in concert with AQ before 9/11.
My gut reaction is that I don't like this, but it's hard to argue that the U.S. is fighting an even bout with those who would enter the country and use its civil liberties to aid their terrorism planning.
Of course we expect that, the question is where to draw the line in areas where civil liberty directly conflicts with security.
>I remember reading about how Lebanon's cellular phone providers are deeply in bed with Hezbollah, as just one example. Likewise with the Taliban working in concert with AQ before 9/11.
Some tribal people, in a god-forsaken land, with a technical sophistication somewhere between cavemen and world war II, were "working in concert with AQ"?
Yeah, surely the US needs surveillance for all its citizens to counter that.
>My gut reaction is that I don't like this, but it's hard to argue that the U.S. is fighting an even bout with those who would enter the country and use its civil liberties to aid their terrorism planning.
What planning? After decades of external US intervention, invasions, wars, support for dictatorships (from the Shah to Pinochet) and weirdos (remember how Saddam and Laden were "allies" in the 80s?), there have been like 2 or 3 attacks on US soil, 9/11 included. Suburban kids with machine guns kill more people in their schools each year than most of those.
In 2001, 3000 people died from terrorism. In 2010, 600,000 people died from heart disease, 575,000 from cancer, 120,000 from accidents, 50,000 from the flu and 38,000 from suicide.
If 3000 people died each year from terrorism, would it be worth not giving up the freedoms we have? That would still be a very small number compared to the flu, which no one I know has a fear of getting because they think they'll die.
My point is, that where we draw the line is in the wrong place because of our irrational reaction to terrorism and its actual risk of death.
My gut reaction is that I don't like this, but it's hard to argue that the U.S. is fighting an even bout with those who would enter the country and use its civil liberties to aid their terrorism planning.
Of course we expect that, the question is where to draw the line in areas where civil liberty directly conflicts with security.