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Lockheed Martin Hardware to Protect NYC Transit
Gerhardius writes "Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $212 million contract to provide cameras and sensors for New York City subways, bridges and tunnels." The entire program is being conducted under the guise of anti-terrorism and includes plans for a possible wireless network which would allow cellular phones to be used in case of emergency.
I thought they only made airplanes? Tell me Cheney wasn't CEO of them too...
I'm only half joking by the way, karma be damned.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
New subway train panels are now armed with homing missiles. Followed by M-16s under every seat in case of emergency. Train headlights have also been replaced with vulcan cannons.
It seems pretty a fairly legit description of what the money is being used for.
Welcome our new cellphone using, military aircraft designing, subway securing overlords? no wait... you just want to know whats in my bag...
Live according to the Categorical Imperative. If the Categorical Imperative tells you not to live by it... ignore it
The entire program is being conducted under the guise of anti-terrorism
Or, it's possible that it really is about prevention of attacks. NYC is a very likely target and everyone just saw what happened in London. Of course, if it makes you happier to believe that everyone is out to get you, then go on.
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With X10, privacy is obselete! (TM)
But we all know this is just an excuse to stop the rampant urination. But without the urine, it won't be the NYC subway any more and the terrorists will have won.
Lockheed Martin is now the world's largest defense contractor, handling everything from sea/air/land/space vehicle development to "system of systems" integration (which basically could be anything). Had they merged with Northrop (as was planned) in the 90s, they would have had a good chance at stifling Boeing's growth into the defense market.
At least they are not homemade endoscopes.
Fortunately transit security cameras are free from such pesky issues as the fatal mixing of metric and English units of measure.
How sensitive are these sensors going to be? I am assuming they will only been in low traffic areas (because putting a motion sensor in a high traffic area is a little silly) which doesn't really seem to be MO of any attacks that I know of. Also in those areas could they not be set off by some of those larger than normal NYC Rats?
How would it prevent the kind of stuff that happened in London, though? Can this thing see trhough the backpack of a suicide bomber?
To me the whole thing looks like another instance of "synergy" between government and a large corporation whereby a little bit of my (taxpayer's) money gets given to some execs at LM with a bit of help from some senator whom they helped to get elected.
Will it solve ANY problem at all? I highly doubt it.
Well, other than providing the executives of Lockheed-Martin with yet another banner bonus year this will do zero to prevent terrorism. The UK has more video surveillance than anywhere on the earth. Yet amazingly enough terrorists found their way onto the subways and busses and killed scores of people. When people are willing to kill themselves in an attack video surveillance means nothing. All it provides is a good set of pictures for Islamist websites to make an online martyrs shrine with.
For when police start to ask "are you a terrorist?" in thier usual barage of questions. Protection and domination merge at somepoint and it seems to me that that point is approaching soon.
The article even says it can't stop a suicide bomber. But hey, lets burn any semblance of privacy for feel good measures instead of
looking at the root causes.Why does noone EVER mention in the media that by playing global corporate cop around the world we PISS people off? I can tell you right now that if the chinese or russians were over here, inevitably some americans would be suicide bombers against them.
Cause and effect.
It's sad to think we went from men like this:
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.
or this :
"They that can give up essential liberty, to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
or this:
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
--Samuel Adams
To the SHEEPLE we have today.
I guess Franklin was right,
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Security cameras are in every supermarket, mall and gas station in the US, and motion sensors are installed in many utility tunnels already (too many urban explorers these days). I guess ScuttleMonkey is trying to say that these cameras and sensors will be actually used to spy on molemen. The US government has never respected the rights of its good, subway-living, citizens.
Heaven forbid they track people's pictures and locations! Who knew that 9-11 could lead to the security-measures of a 7-11?
Any wireless network underground, while helpful, would probably collapse under the traffic of a few hundred people in a packed train (assuming an incident occured during rush hour). Since you cannot predict an attack, it is likely that these circuits would be dedicated to emergency services from the start or switched over to emergency services should an incident occur, just like many main wireless traffic circuits were in London. The security of calling home to tell people you're ok should something happen from inside a tube just isn't there and never will be.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I was there yesterday and quite a few devices were sitting above the sliding doors and in a row along the ceiling as you came into the terminal, and they were oval shaped. They rotated on a platform and spun on a spindle, giving them 360 degrees of freedom. Each white oval was maybe 1.5 feet by 1 foot in diameter and they seemed to follow and track things, mobilizing suddenly at times, but remaining in default position most of the time.
The thing is the each egg shaped "camera" seemed to point with either a lens on one end the oval or a square shaped opening on the opposite side. The square shaped side I imagine has some other sort of detection ability. They looked big and expensive, and I was kind of curious what sort of tech goes into these.
Is anyone on slashdot working on these sorts of applications? Maybe someone could shed some light on what sort of sensory abilities these things have?
Lockheed is a quality defense contractor, and they Already do good work in NYC with the NY/NJ Port Authority (bridges and tunnels). So alot of the work probably overlaps in the homeland security realm. Nothing wrong with a keeping things under one umbrella. One less layer of problems to deal with...
You can fool some of the people all of the time
1. Cameras in subways
2.
3. Profit!
It's government contracting, so there is no second step. In fact, if Lockheed does it right, the first step really isn't required, either.
I kid, but I say this as one of those "slimy government contractors" working for a competitor in another sector. In reality, I don't think they're installing the cameras under the guise of anti-terrorism action with some nefarious intention, nor do I think that Lockheed is invading a passenger's privacy (on a subway platform? what privacy?).
Is Lockheed taking advantage of the situation, meaning a plump contract that was created out of equal shares necessity and fear? Sure. Why wouldn't they?
Then we would have fantastic footage of the execution-style murder of Jean Charles de Menezes...
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Seriously, have you ever been in a New York Subway in August?
Talk about toxic.
I live in Times Square New York City.
Until September 11, 2001, I worked at the World Trade Center.
I just watched the same religious militants bomb the London Underground.
I have ancestors who fought and died in the Revolutionary War.
So you know what I think?
I say put the cameras on the subway already.
Am I scared? Am I giving up freedom for safety? Am I giving up rights hard fought for by my ancestors for a little sense of security?
No, I'm simply being prudent about the world we live in.
This is not Orwellian Big Brother going on, really. No one is burning any books and telling you what to think. I'm not giving up any rights. There's no fascism going on. There's no fundamentalism going on. Really. This is simply prudent deterrance going on here. REALLY. There are no jackbooted thugs. There are no secret police. There is no slippery slope. This is not a paranoid schizophrenic scifi fantasy world. This is not a Hollywood dystopian B-grade plot. There is no Sith Lord. There is no Agent Smith.
R-E-A-L-L-Y.
Welcome to reality, leave your histrionic idealism at the door. You're not being helpful, you're just being a loud angry child who can only keep track of one simplistic concept in your mind: idealistic appeals to Revolutionary War era sloganeering.
It doesn't have one damn thing to do with cameras in the subway.
Not one. Grow up and develop an appreciation for the complexity of real life. Hopeless hysterical idealism doesn't help at all.
Give me a break. Loud children without any appreciation for nuance in this world. You know how to thump your chest and act indignant when someone waves propaganda about all of our rights going down the toilet.
The only thing going on here is just a whole hell of a lot of hysterical simplistic children.
Very loud, very pathetic. Of no help to the problems facing us at all.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why is it that even with all this increased security in the the name of 'protecting the American public', you still have as much crime as ever in the subway?
How can homeland security ever hope to thwart a terrorist, if they can't thwart a 15-year-old with a glock?
I don't think anybody feels safer in the subway, just try riding the 'F' train at midnight and you'll notice that it still has the same level of crime as pre-9/11.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
"The only ones protecting anybody is the New York Police Department, and the Soldiers in Iraq."
How about the Soldiers in Afganistan and the Special Ops guys in Pakistan trying to find and kill the Al Qaeda leadership? Oops, we got distracted and forgot about Bin Laden!
"As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
See Penn & Teller, Season 2, episode 2? Maybe... I forget which it was exactly, but I can say from personal experience that I have never contracted an STD from a NYC subway toilet!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The government keeps on spending money on technology that will keep us "safe" from terrorism. But we're when or where the next attack will happen, so let's just be paranoid and spend a lot of money on stuff like this.
Let's make everything as safe as possible. Coincidentally, the same technology that will "protect" us will also make us more susceptible to government surveillance. Come on, people: wake up. Our civil liberties are being rapidly chipped away every day under the guise of the government "protecting" us. ID cards, cameras in public places, the Patriot Act - when it all doesn't work, they'll use it as an excuse to have even more of these type of "utilities" to "fight" terror. I'm supposed to trust the same entity that gave us a national color-coded "Homeland Security Advisory System" with "protecting" me from an unnamed, ever-changing enemy? Of what utility is this - what does it measure, how scared I'm supposed to be?
Give me a break.
"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
While the various conceptual problems with large-scale surveillance have been pointed out elsewhere in the thread, I wonder if it will be as bad as the other attempts at large-scale surveillance in the U.S.
which would allow cellular phones to be used in case of emergency
...or to use cell phones to detonate those backpacks full of explosives.
When work feels overwhelming, remember that you're going to die.
but I wonder if it will take $200M for each of the hundreds (if not thousands) of other cities' transit systems around your country which are now more viable targets.
Of course next time they might not target transit systems at all...
THIS is why its called ASYMMETRIC warfare.
You folks might want to check out Bruce Schneier's book "Beyond Fear", or back issues of Crypto-Gram (http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html).
Still, if the customer feels good - does it matter if its just a placebo? And shareholders of Lockheed Martin - woo hoo!
--
My slant on global affairs.
http://newtonsthirdlaw.blogspot.com/
I live in NY City, and for the past few weeks there have been cops in many subway stations doing random searches. According to this article:
. htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8660152/
This is costing the city $2 million per week.
If you look at this page (New York MTA):
http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/mta/ind-perform/per-nyct
You'll see that the subway system sees about 120 million riders per month with 3 customer accidents and injuries per million per month. That's 40 injuries per month from accidents. Sometimes these are things like fatalities caused from someone getting bumped off of an over-crowded subway platform during rush hour onto the tracks...
So the city spends $2 million per week to "fight terrorism on the subway" and $212 million for security cameras on the subway rather than actually making a difference a difference by improving the system. Go to some G-train subway stations in brooklyn. The structural steel girders are rusting out and the stations are in dire need of maintenance.
And how much money has our government spent starting wars in the middle east (first gulf war, troops in Saudi Arabia, current Iraq occupation)... hundreds of billions of dollars
And then people over there get pissed off and want to set off subway bombs, and then we pay for it again by dealing with an army of cops checking our bags on the subway.
If they want to make subway riders safer, spend money on safety and infrastructure -- not cops -- to reduce accidents. If the government wants to eradicate terrorism, stop spending money on killing people in the Middle East. But of course getting rid of terrorism isn't the issue -- the issue is control of the dwindling global reserves of oil and new business opportunities in the middle east for American companies.
And we as taxpayers have to pay for it, and I have to let cops search my bag if I want to ride the subway to work and pay for that too.
The difference between cameras and searches is that the camera is there to provide details about what happened (like a black box in an aircraft), a search is inteneded to prevent it happening (like a cell search in jail). A camera assumes everyone is innocent, a search assumes the opposite.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Considering this funding on a per victim basis, this must be the most expensive public safety program yet.
Consider how many people have been killed in automobile accidents, and how comparatively little public money gets spent 'preventing' that carnage.
There might not be another terrorist attack on US soil for the next decade, but I'll guarantee that more than 40,000 people will die on US roads next year.
libertarian stuff aside the point of the cameras is not to
prevent a terrorist attack - the odds of that are virtually
nil. What they will be used for is to assist in the capture
of non-martyr terrorists, criminals, or identifying dead
terrorists. So if you are going to argue the libertarian
case then argue it against what they really are there for.
As for the other part of this contract, I'm not sure what
kind of crack or meth these people are smoking when they
decide to wire up the subway system for cell phones. Even
if they are not doing the tunnel proper, the signal will
still propogate a bit out of the station, and frankly will a
bomb detonated in the station instead of in the tunnel be
that much worse? Our military are using signal blockers
in Iraq to try to prevent IED's being triggered by cell
phones and here we make it just that much easier to be
used in a mass casualty environment, all in the name of
some dope being able to call his friend and tell them
they are getting on the subay. Freaking genius!
This sure seems like wasteful spending. Do we really need them? Okay, that aside. I think the only way I'd be almost okay with this type of surveillance is if the voters approved it, whether it's a bad idea or not.
Any issue which regards removing our privacy needs to be dealt with by a city/county referendum. That way it's not our representatives telling us what to do, so-to-speak.
"if they legalize marijuana, what next, pedophilia?"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Or, it's possible that it really is about prevention of attacks. NYC is a very likely target and everyone just saw what happened in London
London already had cameras everywhere, but that didn't seem to stop the bombings there, did it?
"And it is generally a good idea to find and prosecute people who are behind terrorist attacks."
And how exactly would this work with this all-eyes-are-on-you system for 200 million?
Is anyone thinking?
What terrorists? How would you "find and capture" them? Especially if they are dead in the attack? Suppose they don't want to bother the trains, and instead, oh, blow up the water pipelines? Can you place cameras everywhere? If you can, how will you answer the first two questions?
The only people being locked down are us. We are voluntarily entering prison, for no sane reason whatsoever.
Most terrorist plots busted up in the US are hatched by white men. Fact. How would this stop them? Or is this just a war on funny looking brown people, ignoring the crazy white men who are actually arming and plotting?
A giant surveillance system, protecting no one, and 200 million bucks down the drain, and we all enter prison every time we take a train ride, all for nothing and serving no purpose.
Want to prevent "terrorist" attacks, by which I assume you mean brown funny people?
Don't invade their countries, don't steal their money, don't torture their people, and pay attention to what your president has done. Al Queda has gone from a despised group of loonies to the heroes of the oppressed in the muslim underclass, and its all-because-we-validated-their-worst-predictions about what we would do after being attacked by 40 loons -- invade and hold the oil fields. Bush and company are maneuvering to invade Iran now -- another rich oil field. Amazingly enough, the terrorists from the 9-11 attack were mostly Saudi Arabians -- and we haven't even said boo to the Saudis. And everyone has noticed.
We are earning the hatred of those who had no truck with al Queda, and its not because they hate our freedom. They hate us because we're murderous, two-faced hypocrites. A few of those angry young people will be crazy enough, fervent enough, to start killing innocent people here in the US -- and it won't be because they hate us; they hate what we do, and hate us because we simply don't give a damn about what happens to the funny brown people.
Cameras. God. Just stop killing innocent people! Apologize for the invasion of Iraq! Let the people in prison go. It's freaking simple! We're GENERATING the terrorists!
you: "do we need to signal before turning? do we need to wash the windows? do we need to take the second left?"
me: "we need to start the car first"
i don't pander and soft serve your every question
instead, via critical thinking, i cut to the overriding concept
that's what my "stupid response" is
i'm not your wet nurse, i'm not here to hold your hand
think
don't be pedantic
creationists often argue that because scientists won't argue with them about every one of their stupid criticisms of evolution, it means they are scared to argue or are avoiding powerful questions the creationists are posing
the truth is that scientists don't have the time to pick apart every obvious logical fallacy creationists put forth in every imaginable variation
so now you know what it's like to be a creationist
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
when you are done playing the battle hymn of the republic the rest of us here in reality are ready to talk
you've gone off on a really fascinating diatribe
but we're talking about putting cameras in the subway if you hadn't noticed
so try again, but this time try talking about the subject matter at hand instead of marching off to ideological war
thanks for playing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html Only someone completely distrustful of all government would be opposed to what we are doing with surveillance cameras. -- NYC Police Commissioner Howard Safir, 27 July 1999. the Surveillance Camera Players: completely distrustful of all government.
..as a company that "only makes airplanes" anymore--at least anything bigger than little hobby planes. Airbus maybe is the closest thing, and it isn't really a standalone company--it is a consortium of big tech companies glued together with government subsidies and the participants are big conglomerates that make everything too.
Take a look at pretty much any player in the aerospace industry past and present. and they are/were all mega corporations that did/do a bit of everyhing. Boeing and its subsidiaries range from jet planes to weaponry to real estate to financing. General Electric has their paws in everything from turbines to television networks. Rockwell made moon rocket engines, modems for PCs and everything in between. Bombardier has made planes trains and automobiles (or parts thereof).
Airplanes are too sophisticated to be made by mere "airplane companies"--the technology involved is so all-encompassing that such a company by default would be a capable player in a wide range of markets.
I'd say they're about even. I used to live in the Loisada (at the time a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood). I witnessed beatings and murders and I learned to be afraid of the cops (even though I was a honky). Not paranoia, fear of getting shot. NYPD is an occupying army in the barrios, neck deep in the drug trade and a lot of them (like my entire precinct, the 7th) seemed to have no problem with capping someone who got in the way.
I agree that it probably won't accomplish much. But damn, it gives me the creeps.
Obviously they couldn't defeat Osama with OFFENSIVE weapons / stealths and all those Lockheed toys the US govt was so pride of... and now they're going back to the defense.
"And now I switch my Lockheed card, into defense mode".
Very interesting... yes, very interesting indeed.
For decades, Lockheed and its competitors have lobbied the US government to prosecute wars that consume their war materiel. Now they can keep all that lobbying at home, and justify protecting their industry from foreign competitors. With Americans in the crosshairs.
--
make install -not war
it's not that cut and dry. do you think saddam was an angel? he murdered million of kurds using nerve gas. you simply can NOT point the finger at anyone country, we are all guilty of something. the difference is we won't all blow up innocent people. fyi though i think the camera's won't do jack shit. just one more thing slipped in under the "war on terror" bandwagon.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The cameras seem to be a good idea on paper, but as with anything involving the MTA, implementation is going to be the key factor. If the MTA does their usual bullshit, they'll not do anything in the boroughs outside manhattan, and it'll just bee another pisspoor excuse 'for security' HOowever, the MTA still does 'random screenings' that have done nothing to improve security while trampling over everyone's civil rights, and being questionably unconstitional. http://www.nyclu.org/mta_searches_suit_pr_081805.h tml
they should pass out anti-suicide literature in the subways, only then will they thwart attacks
http://www.vanillaafro.com - take me seriously and I will shoot you
"paranoid schizophrenia"
you don't live in a hollywood b-level movie, the sith lord and agent smith in the white house just don't care about you as much as you think they do
the real world might be more mundane then you think it ought to be, but that doesn't excuse from imprinting your hysterical scifi dystopian fears on the rest of us
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And who sold him the nerve gas in the first place and only stopped supporting him when he slipped his leash?
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
"Most terrorist plots busted up in the US are hatched by white men. Fact."
47% of statistics are made up. Fact.
I assume you have a link from the Department Of Justice supporting that assertion? I doubt it.
I don't know if this is real or not, but I'd like to see some more opinions on it and maybe the other side of the story, if it exists. You think something this serious would get on the news. Or well, with what I read in the link, maybe it's the kind of stuff that gets hidden.
it's just that, unlike you, i see that there is very little at stake here to lose and a reasonable amount to gain
you take a prudent relatively harmless move and leverage that via paranoia and a slippery slope into a dystopian fantasy of jack booted thugs out to control your thoughts
here's some more name calling for you: you're histrionic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
nor do i hold their sacrifice in such contempt that i believe what they fought for is as flimsy as tissue paper and the whole enterprise hangs by a thread on the existence of... cameras in the subway
they didn't sacrifice their lives so grown adults could act like hysterical children over nothing
in fact, were they here today, they would recognize the threat and see as prudent the responsive measures, and cast a worried glance at the legions of lightheaded fools who scream high holy murder over nothing
please, those guys would recognize the march of the chicken littles
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Open criticism is what makes America what it is.
Fervent unquestioning belief in a nations goodness, while stifling dissent under the guise of patriotism, is exactly the sort of thing Americans should stand up to. We need different mind sets of people for this nation to work. If liberals do something wrong, conservatives should hound them for it and vice versa.
What is completely appalling is not learning from that dissent.
If the US stopped making mess in the first place or at least punished those who did make the mess it would go a long way to removing that hatred. But no you carry on pissing people off and then pretending that they're the ones with the problem when they react.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
You have many errors in your post but I will pick on just one:
Al Queda has gone from a despised group of loonies to the heroes of the oppressed in the muslim underclass...
In reality they aren't the oppressed underclass at all. In contrast they are often well to do people with good jobs and secular educations, many at english schools. They own their own houses, cars and businesses. This isn't a case of the squirrely looking guy marginalized and outcast from society. Aside from their radical fundementalist Ismalic views they are seemingly main stream members of society.
next time you should try haiku, yoda:
guard freedom from those
who oppress and from those who
think it is so weak
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
all you want
;-P
if you have a good idea subways might be attacked, you do something about that
watching the subways might be a good start
durrrrrrr.....
now go back to whining about illusions and feelings
i'll stick with the concrete and prudent
how's that sound to you?
lol
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
were there any americans caught in the revolutionary war suicide bombing ferries in edinburgh or driving boats laden with explosives into workhouses for the poor in birmingham?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i'm not scared
really
i'm angry
anything else i can help you with today?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The New York Metropolitan area has a population of about 22M. so $212M is just short of $10 for every man woman and child in the metropolitan area. At that price, I could probably make a bulk purchase of a wifi (or bluetooth) webcam for each and every New Yorker, and still have millions left for the infrastructure and servers.
One thing that I'll point out is that this is probably an example of corporate welfare in that they're probably going to put in rhe infrastructure for subway access to cell phones (at government expense) and then basically hand over that infrastructure to a couple of cell companies at pennies on the dollar.
Equally intersting is that this infrastructure is going to be something of an achilles heel. Just as it's going to be available to people to call out of the subway, it's going to be equivalently useful to a terrorist group to call in to the subway (say, to a bomb package).
Now, we've got a bigger security problem -- but that's OK. Well just solve it by making it legal to listen in on all cell phone calls without a warrant (or supply a blanket warrent. which is essentially the same thing)
Big Brother is alive and well, and living in New York -- but that's OK... This one's benevolant.
:-( .... (( patent pending Microsoft ))
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
"you can't try to solve any problems in this world because there are other problems too"
somewhere buried in your fount of cynicism and negativity is someone who actually cared about something once
try to find that person again and get back to us
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i think that when you write your screenplay for your great hollywood movie, you've developed a sound psychological grasp for the mechanisms underpinning your character's story arc from fear to rage
;-P
but if you want to talk about real people, instead of anakin skywalker's descent into the darkside, you want to try to look at the reality of human emotion as it is
or you could continue telling me that my feelings of anger are invalid, and that i should be a mindless emotionless robot when confronted with terrorism
surely this is a superior approach to dealing with the problems facing us today: don't fight the problems, just alter our understanding of how human behavior works!
lol
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Cell phones on the subway! Didn't the madrid bombers use cells phones to activate the bombs?
Lockheed-Martin is the worlds largest manufacturer of tinfoil hats too.
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
US makes mess = criticism
US *finally* steps in to try and clean up mess it made = criticism
The thing that makes me wonder if the US is simply 'cleaning up' it's own mess is that the people who benefit from making a mess in the first place are the same that benefit from 'cleaning up the mess'.
Not all terrorist attacks are suicide attacks. Maybe you havn't been paying attention to the news lately, but not too long ago the London subways were bombed and surveillance cameras helped police determine their identities. No, this won't stop every possible type of terrorist attack, but it will help prevent a specific type of attack. If we had a two hundred million solution to all terrorist attacks, I would be pissed off that it hadn't already been implemented.
"Most terrorist plots busted up in the US are hatched by white men. Fact. How would this stop them? Or is this just a war on funny looking brown people, ignoring the crazy white men who are actually arming and plotting?"
Believe it or not, white people aren't like vampires. We will show up on video just as well as Arabs. And the fact that we are busting terrorist plots hatched by white guys is evidence they are not being ignored.
"Amazingly enough, the terrorists from the 9-11 attack were mostly Saudi Arabians -- and we haven't even said boo to the Saudis."
And amazingly people like you think that just because someone is from Saudi Arabia means they are agents of the Saudi government.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
All the cameras will be used for is identifying the bombers after the carnage they've caused, this is not prevention!
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
You missed my point.
These cameras will not PREVENT an attack.
From the article
"We will try everything, and deploy all technologies possible, to prevent an attack from happening,"
Your rebuttal agrees that in my examples attacks were not prevented. If the goal is prevention (as stated in the article). How will this solution achieve it?
It won't, so why are we wasting money when it won't solve the problem?
As an American who has seen/read/heard the mainstream media from the US and the UK, it seems to me that the media in the UK is far more critical of their government than the US media is of ours.
It is always interesting to compare articles in the FT and the Washington Post regarding the same topic. The FT (supposed to be conservative, I think) usually has more criticism and information than the Post (supposed to be 'left-wing').
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
For any number of terrorists, the fact that the US :
- refuses to approve of the destruction of Israel
- refuses to live under Shariah
is more than enough reason to attack us.So, how does catching people after a terror attack (which prevents them from executing another terror attack) fail to prevent terrorism? Do all terrorists get bored after their first attack?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
> Al Queda has gone from a despised group of loonies to
> the heroes of the oppressed in the muslim underclass...
In reality they aren't the oppressed underclass at all. In contrast they are often well to do people with good jobs and secular educations, many at english schools.
So what? Robin Hood came from landed gentry, there are plenty of other myths and legends of heros of the underclass who were not members of the underclass themselves.
Osama is still the most popular name for newborn boys in the Muslim world -- its because bin Laden is very popular among those who feel they have no power to fight for themselves. You do not get that popular if people think you are just slaughtering innocents.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I also disagree with spending millions on these asinine surveillance systems. The problem is I can't tolerate asshats like you who run down my country. You sound like you're off your medication and that turns people off big time, so they don't hear anything you have to say and they go on supporting the politicians who promote these pork barrel "security" systems. You need to get some perspective.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Also, I would imagine 210 million wouldn't go very far in the road safety department.
The problem with that game is that it'd be a rail shooter ;)
Tell us what you really think.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
If we had a two hundred million solution to all terrorist attacks, I would be pissed off that it hadn't already been implemented.
The price isn't just $200 million. The price is a significant chunk of our freedom. The value of that is immeasurably large.
What has happened to our "America, home of the free and land of the brave" that we should willingly throw away our freedom for such meaningless scraps of false security? We cower in terror at the mere thought of an attack that hasn't even happened once on our soil. Why are we so ready to give up our freedom for "protection" that is a) applicable to only one kind of attack and b) only useful after the fact?
So, when we really do see an attack of a different nature, how much more freedom would you have us give up in response? When we get to the point where we have no more freedom left at all, do you think that will be enough to protect the cowards among us?
And amazingly people like you think that just because someone is from Saudi Arabia means they are agents of the Saudi government.
Saudi Arabia is by large the primary source of Salafism, a branch of Sunni Islam that is just a hairsbreadth away from readily justifying terrrorist attacks. Almost all government officials (aka members of the house of Saud) are Salafi themselves. There is a direct connection between Salafiyyah as exported (with state dollars) by Saudi Arabia and islamic terrorism in the west.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The US military is all over the world for the benefit of the richest 1% of Americans, it is horribly oppressive, and I along with other people around the world are fighting to roll back this evil empire.
And I think this highlights why you WON'T win, and why the organized opposition of the Left is ineffective.
Materialism is not the motivation of historical change. Karl Marx was wrong. Empires are not created and destroyed to materially benefit the few. Materialism is an ancillary tool of control, both in the bestowing of bounty and the enforcement of famine. The only difference between capitalist and communism regimes is capitalists placate their masses with plenty of useless crap, and communists keep their people perpetually hungry. The great leaders of the past who will be remembered for all time, whether or Caesar Augustus, Henry VIII, Napoleon Bonaparte, or Adolf Hitler, all were motivated by much more than materialism.
I think you need to look a little deeper. What these fanatics gain who control the international system of finance, the multi-headed hydra of evil which has infected our world for the past century, is far different than simple wealth.
That said, the Left fails today because they offer nothing to the masses to fight for. People do not sacrifice their lives so that wealth allocated to the top 1% of the population can be redistributed to the bottom 99%.
Materialism is the enemy. The reduction of human pursuits, hopes, and dreams to the economists fantasy is what is destroying our spirit.
When you start attacking the ruling class of Harvard economics majors, perhaps then we will have a start. Until that time, you and every other rebellious anti-war leftist will fail to do anything but whine, and in the end you will lose.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Racial slurs like "Honky" are unacceptable.
Not all terrorist attacks are suicide attacks. Maybe you havn't been paying attention to the news lately, but not too long ago the London subways were bombed and surveillance cameras helped police determine their identities.
The cameras are primarily used for monitoring criminal rather than terrorist activity.e 307679.ece
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/articl
A spokesman said that the police made regular requests to see footage as part of their investigations, although the vast bulk of such requests involved criminal rather than terrorist activity.
When the cameras could have caught images of a suspected terrorist ... none of them were working.
6 49.ece
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article307
None of the cameras at the scene of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July were working, a police document revealed.
The Netherlands..
Google for it, but it's true...
"The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner."
So in contrast, should we ban cameras or monitoring equipment of any type in public? Are cameras in police cars reducing your freedom? Red light cameras? Cameras in ATMs? Security cameras in retail establishments? Roadside emissions sampling? Traffic congestion cameras? Tourists taking pictures? How about a private pilot flying over and taking a picture of your neighborhood?
Ease up on the tinfoil.
Should we ban "tourists taking pictures?"
Ease up on the tinfoil.
Ease up on the bogus analogies.
Your attempt to belittle my point does absolutely nothing to address the fact that networks of closed circuit tv cameras are a very high price for very little gain in actual safety.
Do you actually want to throw away your heritage for nothing? No? Then why the fuck are you supporting doing just that?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Just a couple of the steps in stopping attacks is finding out who did them (since the groups don't always take responsibility), what they did, and how they did them. Having another resource of information is extremely valuable.
You can already be highly tracked the way it is if you're using a cell phone or even credit/debit cards. And it's not really any different - it can be abused too. Is it? Probably not. Same with subway cameras.
All the cameras will be used for is identifying the bombers after the carnage they've caused, this is not prevention!
Analogy: the King's Taster, who tastes food before the King does.
The taster does not save the King's life. The purpose of the taster is to provide post-mortem evidence of assassination: if both the King and the taster die, chances are they died of poisoned food.
-kgj
-kgj
Hmm, a composition of ad hominem attacks and groundless assertions counts as +3 interesting? A sad state of affairs.
You have no expectation of privacy in a public place. You never have had such. This therefore does nothing to reduce your privacy. I have no idea what you're whining about. We all have a reasonable desire for privacy, but if you do something in public, guess what, you're not doing it in private.
These cameras are primarily intended to catch criminals, not specifically terrorists, in any case.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I am not claiming there is a conspiracy.
I am claiming that this strategy will not achieve the stated goals.
If a project will not succeed at its objectives, ie preventing terrorist attacks, it should not proceed.
If there is other merit to the project, ie catching criminals/terrorists after committing a crime, it should be evaluated on those realistic objectives instead.
I think it is dishonest to promote a solution that does not solve the target problem, even if it will result in other benefits.
Only because they were too stupid to kill themselves despite going to extraordinary lengths to do so.
The IRA bombings ceased when the cameras went in precisely because the bombers intended to survive. What too many don't seem to realize is: these guys don't. Suicide bombers don't care if their approach and attack is recorded - they may even revel in the idea - because they won't be around to be tracked down & arrested.
CCTV surveilance has its uses. Unfortunately, for this application, its benefits are minimal.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
What terrorists?
Perhaps the ones who blew up and tried to blow up the London Underground? Or Madrid? You're pretending that suicide bombers getting on public transport isn't a danger. That's ridiculous. New York is a big target. Blowing up a New York subway would be a massive coup for terrorists.
How would you "find and capture" them?
I'm no genius, but I suspect that if they're caught on camera it might be a lot easier to track them down. In fact CCTV in London caught the suicide bombers there.
Don't invade their countries, don't steal their money, don't torture their people, and pay attention to what your president has done.
Tell that to the Iraqis. They invaded Kuwait for no particular reason, stole who knows what, tortured and killed god-knows how many people, and the Iraqi people didn't even hint at revolt.
And what do you mean THEIR countries? The London bombers were born in Britain, Britain didn't invade itself. You think they were Iraqis out to avenge the invasion? In that case they should have attacked Parliament or some other legitimate political or military target. But no, they've just been listening to hate preachers in the local mosque. They hate Britain and its people but they want to live here. THEY'RE the hypocrites.
Just stop killing innocent people! Apologize for the invasion of Iraq! Let the people in prison go. It's freaking simple!
An odd thing to say, as the WTC was attacked before the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. I think your problem is you're assuming that terrorists have legitimate grievances and reasons for their actions, rather than just using things like Iraq as vague excuses to kill people and be a hero to all the other terrorists. Bear in mind they DELIBERATELY TARGET CIVILIANS.
Another problem is that when you decide policy based on what the terrorists want, is that you make terrorism a legitimate way to force policy. If the American government pulled out of Iraq because of terrorism, then anyone in the world who wanted to force you to do something could get their way just by strapping bombs to themselves and getting onto a train.
Call me a traditionalist, but countries should be run by elected governments, not suicide bombers.
No, but the fact that several of the highjackers were using airline tickets purchased by the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the US might indicate government involvment
So in contrast, should we ban cameras or monitoring equipment of any type in public? no
Are cameras in police cars reducing your freedom? no
Red light cameras? yes
Cameras in ATMs? no
Security cameras in retail establishments? no
Roadside emissions sampling? no
Traffic congestion cameras? no
Tourists taking pictures? no
How about a private pilot flying over and taking a picture of your neighborhood? no
"Ease up on the tinfoil."
The problem here is that these cameras are going to be used as law enforcement devices, giving the powers that be greater power. Its important that we have the ability to nonviolently or violently dispose of our own government should the need arise. Technology in general, and surveillance technology in particular, could potentially make that difficult or impossible.
I'm not suggesting we will need to overthrow the government anytime soon or anything. Its just that if the British had had the ability to monitor (and therefor control) the locations of key North American British citizens two hundred some years back, the US would not necessarily exist.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
The crack? votes, and money. Telling people they can phone 911 when they are in the subway makes people feel good, means they'll vote for the councillors who made this happen. Plus money, it's a free market economy. X million commuters a day on the subways, how much income is that if each of them makes a 10 cent phone call? I shouldn't be suprised if the phone companies weighed in to help make it happen.
"mass casualty environment"
I call it "going shopping", or "going on the subway to meet up with some friends". I think you should ease off those FPS games
Overall, your points are good, but a few things struck me:
> In fact CCTV in London caught the suicide bombers there.
After they delivered the attacks. Cameras are NOT used to STOP terrorist acts.
> They invaded Kuwait for no particular reason
That's entirely untrue. There were reasons. They weren't good reasons, but alas, reasons existed.
> the WTC was attacked before the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan
And The United States was sticking its dick in the Middle East LOOOOOONG before the WTC attacks.
> Another problem is that when you decide policy based on what the terrorists want
And the terrorists don't want Americans to be clamped down on by their own government? Despite your statement, policies ARE being changed because of their actions!!!
You can already be highly tracked the way it is if you're using a cell phone or even credit/debit cards. And it's not really any different
So if we can already be "highly tracked" like that, why do we need another way to be tracked? You apologists always make the argument that, "we've already lost our privacy so what's the point of fighting it?" But if that were true, the powers that want more power would not be pushing for these additional encroachments.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Now I'm really depressed. I thought the Dutch were better than that.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
I don't consider myself an apologist, and you probably don't consider yourself a conspiracy theorist. I guess that my assumption isn't that there's some sort of ulterior motive behind things like this. There was a bunch of yelling and screaming when the Patriot Act came about - life as we know it is over. Well, now that we're a few years in, can you honestly say it has affected your life? I just refuse to believe that the politicians are sitting in a room rubbing their hands together with a devilish grin as they brainstorm as to how they're gonna fuck with the commoners.
I hate to break it to you, but the freedom to be invisible in a public place (such as the NYC subways) is long gone. In fact, it never existed in the first place. These security cameras are not the telescreens from 1984.
"Saudi Arabia is by large the primary source of Salafism, a branch of Sunni Islam that is just a hairsbreadth away from readily justifying terrrorist attacks. Almost all government officials (aka members of the house of Saud) are Salafi themselves. There is a direct connection between Salafiyyah as exported (with state dollars) by Saudi Arabia and islamic terrorism in the west."
You could make the same connections between PETA and ALF/ELF or the Catholic Church and the guys who bomb abortion clinics. Does that mean we should round up all PETA members next time a drug research lab is bombed or all practicing Catholics next time an abortion doctor is killed? I find it ironic that you think surveillence cameras are an intolerable breach of our human rights, but that people should be considered guilty of a crime just because they have similar viewpoints of the actual perpetrators.
In case you are interested in real history, bin Laden and the Saudi government are not on good terms. He is still pissed at them for choosing the Americans instead of him to protect them back in '91.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Well, now that we're a few years in, can you honestly say it has affected your life?
Absolutely. In many ways, and none for the better.
One small example - green lasers. There was a rash of reported laserings of airplane cockpits over the last year. Despite significant reasons to doubt many of the reports such as pilots obviously mistaking other natural phenomenon like st elmo's fire for a green laser as well as the physics of hitting and stabling tracking an airplane cockpit for any length of time.
The result? One guy in NJ gets arrested and detained under the patriot act for shining his laser into the sky at a helicopter and a mass crackdown on green laser sellers plus monitoring of forums like the lasers forum at candlepowerforum.com. Sure, the guy was a dumbass, but there was NO need to invoke the patriot act on him.
So, because I own and talk about legally using a high-powered green laser I am now listed in at least one government agency's files and am that much closer to being detained without access to a lawyer if I end up caught up in the wrong set of circumstances.
Meanwhile, the appropriate question you should have asked about the patriot act is - how has this constitution-trampling act benefited your life?
The answer is -- in no measurable way. There has not yet been a single actual terrorist caught and charged with the provisions of the patriot act. Instead its use has warped for all kinds of tasks which the party line said it would never be used for. Mr laser for example, drug enforcement, organized crime, etc. Stuff we already had plenty of laws on the books for.
I just refuse to believe that the politicians are sitting in a room rubbing their hands together with a devilish grin as they brainstorm as to how they're gonna fuck with the commoners.'
Again bogus analogies. It is far simpler than that, no conspiracy necessary. It is just a bunch of people who believe that they can do no wrong and thus wish to mandate that they be trusted to do no wrong. Good intentions all around. Except that these people willfully ignore the lessons of history that power corrupts. The more power they take for themselves the more corrupt the organizations will eventually become. Maybe not today (although I consider the reported mis-uses of the patriot act to already be clear corruption) and maybe not even tomorrow. But eventually, and more than likely SOON.
Corruption and abuse of power is a fundamental law of human nature applicable to any organization. It's why the constitution was a model of checks and balances. Tearing down those checks and balances can only increase the amount of corruption.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
the freedom to be invisible in a public place (such as the NYC subways) is long gone. In fact, it never existed in the first place.
You greatly exaggerate my point in order to build up a strawman. I never said a thing about "freedom to be invisible" but I will say that these networked cameras are an unreasonable search. When the bill of rights was drafted, no one could have even conceived of such tools backed by databases and networks in the hands of the state. Thus, while it may not be popular opinion with the courts, I feel confident in believing that the authors of the bill of rights would consider them a direct violation our right to be secure in our person from unreasonable searches.
You could make the same connections between PETA and ALF/ELF or the Catholic Church and the guys who bomb abortion clinics.
Hardly. Furthermore, in both or your examples they are a) not a government and b) not directly funding terrorist groups.
I find it ironic that you think surveillence cameras are an intolerable breach of our human rights, but that people should be considered guilty of a crime just because they have similar viewpoints of the actual perpetrators.
Again you grossly exaggerate my point so as give yourself a pathetic strawman to break down. Of the two of us, I'm pretty sure I am a hell of a lot more sympathetic to the common muslim man and woman.
The point, again, is that the Saudi government is directly supporting an extremist group that is directly connected to all of the major terrorist attacks in the west and most of them in the east too. In many cases, this support is intended to redirect the blame they desevere for their part in the state of the middle-east squarely onto the shoulders of the west.
In case you are interested in real history, bin Laden and the Saudi government are not on good terms. He is still pissed at them for choosing the Americans instead of him to protect them back in '91.
I'm pretty sure I know more about bin Laden and his association with the house of Saud than you do. Just because bin Laden has personal issues with the Saudi royal family doesn't mean that al queada is in any way adverse to using the money and the actions of the Saudis to further their goals of propaganda.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Your opinion of the viewpoints of people you never met notwithstanding, the courts have determined that viewing something in plain sight in a public place is not an unreasonable search. Guess whose opinion ends up mattering.
" Hardly. Furthermore, in both or your examples they are a) not a government and b) not directly funding terrorist groups."
a) The Vatican set aside, so what? Are governments the only ones who can be held accountable for terrorist actions?
b) Want to make a bet? PETA has certainly donated money to ELF, which the FBI considers a domestic terrorist group. And you mentioned an indirect funding of terrorism by the Saudis (Saudi government -> Salafi organizations -> terrorists), not direct. Its very possible if you were to dig deep enough in the Catholic Church you would see the same thing. Its even possible you have donated money indirectly to violent groups. Each time you make a financial transaction, what do you do to verify that money does not get used for violent purposes?
That point put aside for a second, the post I was responding to only mentioned money as an afterthought. Its primary concern was the beliefs of the members of the Saudi government, the implication being that they should have been considered guilty of 9-11 because they believe in a radical form of Islam. Feel free to refine your statement if you see fit, just understand the error of that post.
"In many cases, this support is intended to redirect the blame they desevere for their part in the state of the middle-east squarely onto the shoulders of the west."
Are you telling me you know the intentions of leaders of foreign governments? I hope you work for the CIA, that clairvoyance will come in handy in preventing the next terrorist attack.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this, but it seems that many people that are quick to shout 1984! are lacking the facts. I think the main point of these cameras is not to track faces, but determine if something out of the ordinary is occuring as it happens. This is an "intellegent" video system. Basically what it does is detects bodies walking by, and zeros into packages that are left behind by travelers (or terrorists). This is a primary way that terrorist activities are carried out. There may be more to it, but I am unaware of any other utilities for this technology. It's sad to see so many paranoid people freaking out about cool technology before knowing any facts.
the courts have determined that viewing something in plain sight in a public place is not an unreasonable search.
Viewing is a whole hell of a lot different from recording, archiving and cataloging.
a) The Vatican set aside, so what? Are governments the only ones who can be held accountable for terrorist actions?
b) Want to make a bet? PETA has certainly donated money to ELF, which the FBI considers a domestic terrorist group.
In either case, the US government is not encouraging business relationships with those groups, while they are just as gung-ho as ever to support domestic business relationships with the Saudis.
Are you telling me you know the intentions of leaders of foreign governments? I hope you work for the CIA, that clairvoyance will come in handy in preventing the next terrorist attack.
No clairvoyance required, the CIA can read public news articles and analysis just as well as I can.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Archiving information is different from searching. So you are not arguing that this is an "unreasonable search", but that the government should not store this information. There is a clear difference between searching and storing information, and while one was limited by the Bill of Rights, the other is mandated (though in a much more limited form) by Article 1, Section 2.
" In either case, the US government is not encouraging business relationships with those groups, while they are just as gung-ho as ever to support domestic business relationships with the Saudis."
Well neither group generally engages in "business relationships", though certainly there are many members of the US government who encourage ties to each group. And I believe both have tax-exempt status, so the government does provide incentives to give money to each (if you count that as a business transaction). But this line of argument is a red herring, the origional accusation was that the Saudi's must be guilty because they share ideology and through an indirect means funds with terrorists. Using that logic, PETA members and the Catholic Church must be guilty of terrorism as well.
" No clairvoyance required, the CIA can read public news articles and analysis just as well as I can."
Now that I think of it, the CIA probably would want someone who can distinguish between facts and conjectures.
Ok, feel free to insert a CIA joke relating to that last statement here.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.