The world is generally safer now than at almost any previous time, particularly for those of us that remember the Cold War and the early-mid 1980s, when even these measures weren't required to avoid mutually-assured destruction (MAD) by two super-powers and their proxies. The only people wanting to limit freedom are politicians in the pocket of those wanting to expand the myriad of security services of the state. This feeds into the projected paranoia of those citizens who fail to understand the true cost, chance, or opportunity of reducing terrorist activities. Of course there has to be an attempt to reduce terrorist activities, but its the internal processes and procedures in place currently between the myriad network of security services which need to be reformed drastically, not the further expansion of those security services or the reduction in freedoms.

Terrorism is an issue of public security, while before 1991 the Soviet Union (for the Western world at least) was an issue of national security. Issues of public security need to be treated as such, not over-inflated and treated incorrectly. This helps support the terrorists, not defeat them, as has been shown in almost every internal urban civil conflict in the past hundred years.

Obviously since the number of deaths caused by terrorism thus far is tiny, for terrorism to justify these actions that you agree would otherwise be unconscionable, the only conclusion you could make is that the security apparatus must be supremely effective, and have thwarted thousands of otherwise successful attacks against the US alone.

Am I correct in following that train of thought? Do you believe that a significant number of deaths have been prevented, say a number close to those killed by ATV's* in the US each year?

What is the evidence for these thwarted attacks?

* www.atvsafety.gov/stats.html

At the same time, treating terrorism prevention as a police mater appears to militarize the police.

Preventing all terrorism isn't actually the goal though.

Just like our vaccination regimes are not intended to completely eradicate disease, merely prevent epidemics and pandemics, the anti-terrorism programs are intended to increase safety and security for Americans (and by proxy, other nations who would also be targets of the groups aligned against the USA), in a way such that terrorism does not happen so often that the people demand the police state we all claim here to despise.

It is recognized that completely eradicating terrorism is probably impossible, but the U.S. can make it almost impossibly difficult to form large enough terror cells to repeat things like 9/11.

And unlike your rather defeatist attitude, I think that can be done without "eviscerating" civil liberties, as long as we employ ample doses of transparency, watchdog groups, and organizational structures designed to keep those programs directed to the mission and provide accountability and oversight. Of course it can be done; how do banks holding billions of dollars of their customers funds manage to provide strict accountability for those?

Pretty much every prior technological breakthrough has made tyranny in the U.S. more likely, and the U.S. has managed to pull through in each case (though sometimes with roadbumps...).

And, if you're really concerned about the rule of law you will do everything possible to avoid "a 9/11 every year". When the state fails to protect the people, the people (armed by the 2nd Amendment) will take matters into their own hands, and it won't be pretty for many innocents in America.

But again, if you have better ideas I'm sure the NSA is listening...

One simply has to extrapolate that all reasonable efforts to avoid terrorism aside, terrorism is simply the same result of liberated living as driving a car

Wait -- that's definitely not true; the Boston marathon bombings and Newtown come to mind. I think you implied in your second paragraph that "dealing with domestic terrorism" is a separate issue -- in truth, I don't think we can properly separate domestic from international. Terrorism is terrorism.

That being said, I'm not convinced we live in a different enough time to warrant the infringement of basic rights, either. While the article might be suggesting that we can't draw a line at all, that's not what I'm suggesting either. I just think we need to carefully balance the issue of safety vs. freedom.

Nonetheless, what I said was "Terrorism is not a serious or legitimate threat to the vast majority of Americans". My point was in the context of the tradeoffs we make in our society given the risks.

For example, our TSA security measures have actually increased deaths in America BC people have substituted to driving when when it would have been a short flight due to the inconvenience of airport security [1].

Since driving is much riskier Han flying, deaths have increased such that more people have died from this effect than from all terrorism in the US since (and including 9/11).

Because the threat of terrorism is extremely small WITHIN the US, our response has been entirely overblown.

A similar example is the surge in gun purchases after the San Bernardino shooting. Gun related accidents from these purchases will undoubtedly cause more deaths than terrorism.

Thus, when making policy (and personal) decisions, we need to do an objective cost/benefit analysis.

The result: it absolutely makes sense to own a gun, have limited freedom of movement, or government surveillance if you live in Afghanistan. In the US, not so much.

>Please read the news beyond Americas borders sometimes.

I'm extremely well read in international policy research. Many of my friends are researchers at RAND corporation, and they focus on international terrorism.

My response to your statement would be that you can't create a generalized policy solution for the whole world. It needs to be contextualized by the situation on the ground.

[1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/excess_automo...

To me, the problem with terrorism (aside from the terrorists) is that there are people willing to jump in immediately with political (or financial) agendas. Within hours, I'd already seen comments on FB about how fewer people would have died if France had a 2nd amendment. And, over the past few days, I've seen so much pro-police-state propaganda in the US media that it frankly scares me to death.

No - we really don't need more 'surveillance' or more build-ups in 'defense spending'.

Call me 'crazy', but I really think we should be spending the trillions and trillions of dollars (which would otherwise go into the pockets of the propagandists) on our generation's geniuses to enable them to create the technologies that makes disease, poverty, and inequality obsolete.

Let's be honest with ourselves, the chance to be killed by terrorists is minuscule compared to other factors that are under human control (air pollution, traffic incidents, homicides).

If you are looking at non-terrorist criminal activity, one has to wonder if you don't have more serious problems than unlocking a bunch of iPhones when your homicide rates[1] or traffic-related deaths[2] are higher than nearly any other Western country.

Terrorism and crime are just easy distractions to get more power.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

If someone told you the price for living in the most free society possible, is that 5,000 of your fellow citizens would die annually by terrorism, would that not be worth it? I would willingly risk my life, given the threat ratio, for that exchange. Particularly given the counter-terrorism efforts are already killing that many now.

If someone wants to blow their self up, or randomly stab you in the throat with a knife, the odds favor they're going to do it. You can try to prevent it, you can deal with the outcome, sometimes you'll succeed, sometimes you'll fail - what ultimately matters is that you don't fail big (nukes). That's it. You battle and deal with terrorism, you don't defeat it. You can't argue with irrationality or insanity, and someone somewhere is always going to be willing to commit terrorism.

> Besides that, it's almost certainly the case that terrorism has resulted in more deaths than has warrantless dragnet surveillance of cross-border traffic.

I don't see how that's relevant one whit. We don't control terrorist actions, we do control our own government's actions, and the latter's actions are restricted by the constitution.

BTW, I never stated that terrorism doesn't exist.

Hand-wavy extrapolations of technological progress are far from sufficient justification for giving up civil liberties. We need actual, public evidence of a sizable threat, actual public proof that the agencies asking for this invasive power can be trusted, and most importantly, actual public proof that these invasive powers will solve the problem they purport to solve at less social and financial cost than any other approach.

If we want to stop terrorism without trading it for something worse, we need to deal with the root of the problem: an aggressive, imperialistic foreign policy that costs more that we can afford, makes us insecure, and benefits only a tiny elite.