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Bank E-Communications Aid During London Bombings
davidwr writes "Reuters and eWeek report on how the British Banks' emergency chatroom and web site helped them cope with Thursday's terrorist bombing." From the article: "The Bank of England, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority switched on a secure section of their Financial Sector Continuity Web site to talk to major banks in the City of London's financial hub about how they were coping. A Bank of England spokeswoman said this was the first time the secure site had been used in an actual crisis situation since its creation in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York."
This will be the place to post the usual how America is really to blame for the London attacks, and that whatever wrongs the USA has committed somehow justifies or excuses the deliberate murder of innocent civilians.
I know that's how this discussion will go, so might as well start it here.
Those vulture bastard 'news' organizations like CNN and MSNBC are nothing better than ambulance chasers.
The reason these events are so terrifying is due to the GIANT headline reporting of outfits like these. They have newsrooms full of cheering vampires who prey on the fears of a cowering public.
A smoking building full of bodies is nothing more than a huge upsurge in profit for these devils.
It wouldn't be terrorism without the spin they put on these events.
...well, it ain't that "secret" anymore now is it ?
In all honesty, I think the real power of such a channel only comes to light in a contingency that directly hits regular communication lines like telephone etc. In that case, an extra "hidden" link could actually have value.
Now, it was primarily a human tragedy where communication was not directly at risk.
Maybe they should have kept it a secret a while longer.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Basically, based on 9/11, BushCo has demanded and received great power. They claimed they needed these new powers to fight "the terrorists". Instead, they mostly ignored the terrorists and applied the military parts of the power to Iraq, and applied the political power to increasing their control of America.
The results? BushCo has greatly increased their political power in America, so that part is a "success", as they see it. Most of the world is increasingly polarized against America. UBL is about where he was before, though Al Qaeda is now estimated to have grown from a few hundred hard-core fanatics on 9/11 (of 2001) to tens of thousands of fanatics. In addition, BushCo has created a vast pool of revenge seekers and other potential recruits. Al Qaeda can apparently attack at will, and we just have to be greatful for trivialities, such as no chemical weapons--this time.
Iraq was in bad shape under Saddam, but now it is a total disaster zone. If BushCo left tomorrow it would be a total loss, with thousands of lives and billions of dollars gone. BushCo claims those losses now have to be considered an investment, and we have to keep pouring more good lives and good money down the the drain. And meanwhile, their own companies continue to make enormous profits on the entire fiasco. In particular, their oil interests make increasing profits as the price of oil skyrockets. Their military companies profit on new bombs. Their construction companies will profit again on cleaning up Iraq, assuming we ever get to that stage.
Finally, to close the loop, much of that money is being piped to the Saudis and other Islamic extremists, who then leak some of it to Al Qaeda, thus helping them commit fresh atrocities such as the latest attacks in London, thus justifying more political power for BushCo.
Excuse me, but the robust banking network is *NOT* important.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
"In the wake of 9/11..." is all too often used to start a paragraph which boils down to "...government spent a ton of money doing absolutely nothing for security while simultaneously doing far more harm to a free and democratic way of life than the terrorists ever could."
I'm pleased to see that at least in one case, someone actually gets it. You can't stop the terrorists. Random bad stuff happens in life, and the best thing for it is to be as prepared as you can. Communications is the single best way to spend money in preparation for insert-bad-stuff-here. Be it terrorism, natural disaster, industrial accident, or what have you, better communications saves lives. As has been said many times by everyone whose job doesn't involve spending billions of dollars, more money should not be spent on trying to prevent disasters, it should be spent on ways to clean up after them. Billions in airport screening is a complete waste of money because it just forces someone to bomb a mall or movie theater instead - billions in police training, EMT and EMS training, hospitals and clinics, etc. is money that will reap rewards no matter what happens next.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
The United States is having its problems. The new "power" president Bush has obtained boils down (at least domestically) to little more than a fiscal stranglehold on the country, a limitation on citizen's rights, and xenophobic-type immigration and travel policies for foreigners.
Political moves like this are inherently unstable, especially in a country like the United States. Bush's government is fiscally irresponsible. However, the true power in the country (the corporations) will lose faith in a Republican Presidency as soon as this government's economic plans start falling apart. Once that happens, he won't stand much of a chance.
Limitations on citizen's rights can only go so far. We've all heard the secret rumours of the CIA and FBI and whomever having all this information on the American people. Things like the Patriot Act and such only mean that these organizations can do more of what they ALREADY DO out in the open. Once citizen's rights are more impinged to the point that the average Joe can no longer buy his smokes and beer as easy as usual, the next election will more likely than not prove that a US government can do anything they want, as long as they don't upset the delicate retail balance on which its people are addicted.
As for immigration, North America, left to its own devices is a dwindling population of high-priced workers. As soon as employers have to start paying more when there are fewer immigrants, and consumers have to pay more as a result, that too will have to change.
As for Iraq, only the narrow-minded see it in black and white. Yes, the United States Army has done a bang-up job (bang in the negative sense), but ask yourself this: do you think the average Shiite or Kurd was panting to keep Saddam Hussein in power? He was a murderous, power-hungry dictator that raped an entire country of resources and a decent quality of life. Yes, Bush went in for the wrong reasons. Yes, it is going badly. I can't reconcile my views on the situation in Iraq, but I know doing nothing is against everything I think the West should stand for.
The attractiveness of terrorism against the West is more likely rooted in the ease in which people are recruited. Education and dogma of the Western Businessman as the enemy of the Arab, and a serious poverty problem make poor Arabs who are being kept down by their own governments and international embargoes caused by these nations problematic take on international "diplomacy" easier targets for recruitment as suicide bombers. Why not, if the leaders of these terrorists groups can promise that your family will be cared for (when you cannot)? Deal with THESE problems and we may yet get somewhere.
When you blame it all on Bush, really you're just saying "Well, it's not my fault!". Wake up. It is all our faults.
New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
can we drop the funny comments (and, for that matter, anything about people worrying about money). people died. it was only yesterday.
thanks.
andy
london
The web might have redundancies, but most ISPs don't have the capacity to handle all their customers at once, and most websites will get slashdotted in minutes.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I don't see the relevance here. The terrorists, whoever they are, attacked mass transit. Most people are not using their 'net' connection during their commute. Most people on the street are going to attempt to use a cell phone or payphone to call, not VOIP.