Citing potential reduction in liberties, Friedman defends infringement on liberties

By Dan Brooks in War on Terror 2 Comments
A baffling chart, courtesy of peacemaker.net

A baffling chart, courtesy of peacemaker.net

Over at the Times, Thomas Friedman has invoked his own slippery slope to argue that if we don’t allow the NSA to log our calls and finger our metadata, another 9/11 might encourage us to cede our civil liberties even worse. It is a pretty convoluted slope—call it the slippery water slide. Friedman’s essential claim is that, while this recently-revealed infringement on our privacy is bad, it does not have so significant an impact on our civil liberties as the theoretical laws a frightened populace might accept in the aftermath of another theoretical 9/11. Then we’d really be in trouble.

Continue reading

Most Americans support NSA phone tracking

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized, War on Terror 3 Comments
Google image search: "most Americans"

Google image search: “most Americans”

Strangely, perhaps even depressingly, the big deal in last week’s revelation of massive domestic NSA surveillance is how not a big deal everyone thinks it is. According to a Washington Post/Pew poll, 56% of Americans consider secret court orders that allow the NSA to access millions of phone records “acceptable,” while only 42% consider it “unacceptable.” Forty-five percent say the government should be allowed even more leeway than it already has secretly gave itself, provided that power is used to fight terrorism. Even though half of Americans presumably do not regard themselves as terrorists, they believe their government should be able to arbitrarily investigate them, because terrorism. At the risk of pique, this is the same country that refused expanded background checks for gun purchases as an unconscionable infringement on the Second Amendment.

Continue reading

Anonymous NY Post source calls TSA screenings “make-believe”

By Dan Brooks in War on Terror 1 Comment
Fat

Fat

On Friday, the Transportation Security Administration announced that an undercover agent passed through screening at Newark airport with a fake bomb. Don’t worry—a TSA official said the agency runs these kinds of tests often, and screeners fail to detect fake bombs “all the time.” Meanwhile, the New York Post continues its tradition of responsible journalism with this first-person account from an anonymous Newark TSA screener. Or it’s Ian Mohr typing with a sheriff’s badge stuck to his monitor. That’s the beauty of an anonymous tell-all; we just don’t know. We also don’t know whether the fake bomb the TSA brought through Newark was The Blair Witch Project or something of their own making. Huh? Am I right? I’d like to remind you that this blog is free.

Continue reading