Year: 2007

The Terrorists Won

On September 11, 2001 terrorists (for the conspiracy minded, domestic; for all others, foreign) set out to change the lifestyle of the American people. Now we send people to prison for half their lives (5 years per count times 9 counts) over a little non-permanent, vandalism.

Mayor Menino said, "It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme. I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred during the response to today’s incidents. …" [Source]

I’m sorry. If you are that stupid, maybe you should not be mayor! Fear mongering over something harmless is an outrage. The threat of terrorism today is not that much different than it was in the 1970s. (modern international terrorism started in 1968)

Terrorism has not changed since the 70s

Although the terrorist threat was known and understood in the 1990s, spending on national security went down during that decade, which affected both counterterrorism and intelligence. With limited resources, there were other intelligence failures, such as the sarin gas attacks in Japan. At the time of the attack, the Aum Shinrikyo cult was “simply not on the radar” because there were not enough intelligence analysts to research potential Asian terrorism. [Source]

So instead of bringing down the iron curtain…

"Why are you travelling so often to Canada?" the tough U.S. border guard barked. I was on Amtrak, going from New York to Montreal, as I’d done dozen of times before over several decades. This was my first experience (summer 2006) of the increasingly standard and intrusive "U.S. Exit Interviews" on trains crossing the border. Source

…and making American’s prisoners on their own soil, shreading the Constitution, hassling people instead of being nice, wasting time and money on useless security tactics (at the airports) for the sake of show, and stealing away the freedoms that have made this country great, we should be giving the intelligence community more analysts and resources to do their job (and their job is NOT to randomly stop teenagers in Maine).

Summary

Blindly following our leaders, not protesting for our rights, couch potato voting, forgetting to love our neighbors, and simply neglecting to use common sense has radically changed the American lifestyle. The terrorists won! And unless the American people stand up and take charge the American way of life will continue to deteriorate until a new revolution comes.

The only thing that the employees of Interference Inc should be charged with is littering!

You know. Maybe the people that are running our government are just too old. Perhaps we should change things to be "if you are OVER 35, you cannot hold an elected office." The more I watch and read, the more I am convinced this is no different than the bands that cover telephone poles and sides of buildings with flyers and bumper stickers, or the guys that pull over at an intersection, extend a 20 foot ladder, and put up a sign for their yard cleaning service, except that these signs had blinky lights.

More video responses:

• The Zebroshow has this video with great clips of the morons that have lost their minds (warning! adult language!)
• Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, giving this matter the seriousness it deserves, talked about hair at the press conference. The reports sound like jerks.
• Another video of the buildings being tagged
• ATHF Mayhem of the Mooninites
• ATHF Revenge of the Mooninites

News and responses:

• Non-Terrorist Embarrassment in Boston at Schneier on Security: "The story is almost too funny to write about seriously."
• Many young Bostonians think city overreacted "’We’re the laughingstock,’ resident says after cartoon signs prompt scare"
• Good coments regarding the press conference Citizens are pissed at Boston.
• Wil Wheaton chimes in "You know, if the goal of terrorists and the whole point of terrorism is to scare the shit out of us so badly that we leap ten feet in the air whenever someone says ‘boo,’ then the terrorists are clearly kicking our national asses." (Digg comments)
• ABC Who is at fault poll "69.1% local, state and federal authorities overreacted" (Digg comments)
• Refuse to be Terrorized
  

  The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics.

  The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

  And we’re doing exactly what the terrorists want.

• Labels for YOUR street art project thanks to Boing Boing
• Coincidentally, two fake pipe bombs were discovered in Boston unrelated to the ATHF advertising and the suspect was NOT arrested.