The NY Times gets it right this time

I rarely agree with the NY Times editorial board, least of all on matters of free speech and association rights. But I think they get it exactly right in this oped that sharply criticizes the recent Supreme Court judgement upholding a federal law against providing material support to terrorist groups. The trouble with this ruling, [...]

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Another small victory for the terrorists

No, the terrorists didn’t blow up a plane or kill people. They don’t need to do that. For, their essential tactic is to make us feel threatened and destroy our normal way of life. And we are making sure they get what they want. In the latest exhibit of caution gone berserk, a Hawaii bound [...]

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The failed airline bombing and our reaction

The reaction of the TSA — the umbrella organization formed after 9/11 to regulate airline security in the US — to the recent terrorist attempt has been along expected lines. More lines, more meaningless regulations, more stifling security measures. When Richard Reid had the bright idea a few years ago to hide explosives in his [...]

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“And then they came for me”

This is probably familiar to anyone who has been following the civil war — now declared over by the government — in Sri Lanka, but I missed it till today. It is an oped by Lasantha Wickramatunge, former editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper of Sri Lanka. It was published posthumously and is a chilling piece [...]

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Why banning communications infrastructure is a terrible response to terrorism

In this excellent piece, security guru Bruce Schneier comments on efforts by the Indian government to ban Google Earth in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks. Let’s all stop and take a deep breath. By its very nature, communications infrastructure is general. It can be used to plan both legal and illegal activities, and [...]

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The kneejerk reactions have begun

A PIL has been filed in India asking to get Google Earth banned. Apparently the terrorists used Google images to plot their attacks. Considering that the terrorists also used buses, trains, cellphones and a fishing boat, perhaps we should ban those as well. And while we are at it, we should make sure that there [...]

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Schneier on the Mumbai attack

Security guru Bruce Schneier writes: Specific countermeasures don’t help against these attacks. None of the high-priced countermeasures that defend against specific tactics and specific targets made, or would have made, any difference: photo ID checks, confiscating liquids at airports, fingerprinting foreigners at the border, bag screening on public transportation, anything. Even metal detectors and threat [...]

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The militarization of domestic security

Radley Balko reacts to the Pentagon plan that would have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe. I predict that while now couched in terms of the necessity for a ready response to a cataclysmic terrorist [...]

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The Mumbai terror attack

The terrorists killed over a hundred innocent people yesterday. This wasn’t an act that took place in some distant part of the world. It happened in a city I care about, one that I have spent four summers in and where many of my friends live or have family. The attack was astounding in its [...]

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Checking for terrorist thoughts in toddlers

Britain is getting spookily close to the world Orwell described.

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Parallel terrors

At least thirty-seven people are dead in a series of horrific blasts in Ahmedabad, India. Iran is going to hang thirty people tomorrow. At first sight, the situations look dissimilar. The people dead in Ahmedabad are innocent victims of terror, their lives snuffed out brutally and callously by vengeful terrorists. The Iranians who will die tomorrow [...]

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Another extreme quote

This one is by former U.S. surgeon general Richard Carmona: As we look to the future and where childhood obesity will be in 20 years … it is every bit as threatening to us as is the terrorist threat we face today. It is the terrorist threat from within. Kerry Howley’s reaction to the above is [...]

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John McCain will continue Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program

I have always feared that if elected, John McCain would be an even more authoritarian chief executive than George W. Bush. Particularly worrying is his disregard for privacy and free speech, especially when it conflicts (in his world-view) with national security. The latest statement issued by McCain’s campaign proves that these fears are justified. Here’s an excerpt: N]either the Administration nor the [...]

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Gujarat police registers case of sedition against TOI

From the TOI pages: The city police have registered a case of sedition and conspiracy against The Times of India, the editor of its Ahmedabad edition, a correspondent and a photographer on the basis of a complaint from the newly-appointed city police commissioner, O P Mathur. Mathur’s complaint comes in response to a series of documented [...]

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The politics of fear

Believe it or not, a guy was told he could not get on to the plane wearing his gun toting T-shirt. A picture of the offending T-shirt is below: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — the terrorists’ greatest victory wasn’t bringing WTC down or carrying out those London bombings. It was changing [...]

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