Bruce Schneier Blasts Politicians, Media

An anonymous reader writes, "In his latest newsletter, security author Bruce Schneier delivered a scathing critique of politicians and the media for promoting fear and ultimately doing exactly what the terrorists want. Citing several cases of false alarms, Schneier writes: 'Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat... Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.' Are the terrorists laughing at us?"

Comments

How Is This News For Nerds??!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I appreciate what Schneier is saying, but when did slashdot start covering terrorism issues? This isn't even close to news for nerds, or my rights online.

This is an opinion piece on one side of the issue, I've never seen slashdot post opinions from the other side.

Slashdot jumped the shark when it went political, its obvious this is just flamewar material to drive the pagehits. Anyone remember when CmdrTaco once said slashdot wasn't the place for this kind of stuff? What happened to those days?

He's assuming the politicians don't have an agenda

[Colin Smith]

And of course they do.

Lets see, continuing control of world oil supplies (and with that the American Way), increase control of local populations, increased money for the military industrial complex and a wider rich poor divide.

What'd be good is if he could come up with a way of guaranteeing the sole allegiance of the political elite was to their electorate.

Re:Machiavelli

[everett]

I hear Greenland is pretty barren, don't think you'd have to worry about big government or big business there.

Re:Obviously

[DerekLyons]

What surprises me is that more people aren't speaking up like Schneier. It seems to me that the role of the press and politicians in promoting terror is very much like that of oxygen and fuel in promoting fire.

Let's not delude ourselves here. If it weren't for the 'fear and hype' generated by the Goverment - Schneier would have to go the Dvorak route and generate some, lest he have to go and find a real job. Schneier isn't 'speaking out', he's fanning the flames so that people see him as a heroic fireman - and the speaking fees etc... keep a' flowing into his pocket.

Re:Not necessarily

[cp.tar]

Yeah, I know... I was being sarcastic...

Terrorists and politicians are just symbiotes... feeding on people and their fear.

P.S. it's losers, not loosers.

Agencies = Megacorps = Politicians = Terrorists

[Quietti]

I really don't care who started this mass terrorisation of the population. Whether it was

• paragovernmental agencies legally operating above the law,
• undercover cops infiltrating anti-globalisation groups to coherce them into commiting felonies,
• government-hired private paramilitary contractors operating outside the law,
• terrorists sending a message to foreign powers and megacorporations to get out of their 3rd-world homeland,
• pissed off poor white trash venting off frustration at their government,
• etc.

No matter which one of them started it, we all lose, because the result is increased loss of freedom and a world-wide megacorporate police state.

Besides, average Joe Whitetrash and average Ahmed Terrorist both have legitimate reasons to be upset. After all, it is megalomaniacs and their laquays that maintain the populace into learned helplessness, misery and slavery. That the average rebel's miscalculated response has nasty consequences for the freedom and safety of the whole planet is a separate issue.

This really does beg the question, does the populace really have a more constructive way out made available to them, other than bursting into government and megacorporate offices and slaughtering the merchants of terror? We are fighting governments that are openly discussing the use of weapons that can leave people blind, deaf or suffocating to death into an allergic reaction, as a method of silencing public discontent. What can we honnestly do against that?