Are We Any Safer?

[Chickenman 9]

I'm thinking no, as we didn't have too large a threat from terrorists before 9/11. It was a pretty small percentage of extremists that hated us. Now, because of Iraq and numerous other international policy errors, a lot of people are pissed at us.

[CorSec 5]

Beh. I'm safe. Always have been. And I'm a teenager...I'm immortal, cocky and egotistical. Nothing's scaring me :o

[Ayingel 24]

it's somewhere about the same...and it seems we only upped security to only give the impression of someone being safer. it seemed to be the thing to do to keep the panic from spreading, ya know? The only thing i really see is that it keeps getting harder and harder for people to meet up at airports. all the security checkpoints take forever (for doing the exact same thing they did in half the time before) so people end up being late for flights or trams...if a child is travelling, they may not know where to go at all times and can get lost since people can't wait in the terminal anymore...rather annoying if you ask me..

[Alexander 0]

Everything's the same, people in security (ie. Airports) just adopt an anal-retentive way of handling it.

"We went from utterly sithty airport security to sort of sithty sithty airport security. There's been no change in airport security. Airport security at this point is completely psychotic. It has nothing to do with reality. We have never had a lick of common sense. We didn't do sith before, and now we respond like, 'Oh ewok! We gotta do everything! We're just going to have a guy who sits here and reads about security while people are going through and someone will sing a song about it!' ewoking unbelievable."

- Lewis Black

[GI_Admiral 2]

Eh, we'll all die anyways, so no.

[Radioactive Isotope 25]

i think yes and no. yes, it's going to be tougher for terrorists to get stuff through the airports, but in the grand scheme of things, not really. give it a couple years and everything will get lax again.

[Chickenman 9]

I'm not talking about airport security, I'm talking about from terrorism in general. I doubt a terrorist could get through our security nowadays, but I doubt they'd want to when there are so many easier courses to take.

[GI_Admiral 2]

No.

If someone has the will, they can get through it. To find a terrorist, we would need to search everyone, which our capitalistic nation will not allow due to the amount of time it will take.

Basically, what we're doing by increasing security by a small amount will let us think that "No one will get through that" and we'll become as ignorant as we were before.

You'll never be "Safe" from terrorists in the sense that you always have a a % chance of being attacked. Even if that % is low enough for some to consider 0.

[Tsl 6]

No, no safer. When we went to Hoover Dam in July, we had to stop at a Homeland Security checkpoint before we entered, so, you know...we wouldn't car bomb the dam and kill a whole lot of people. You know the soffisticated method of detecting bombs they used?

They poked at our car topper a couple times and then asked us what was in it.

Yeah...

Edited August 6, 2005 by Tsl

[Chickenman 9]

This is...interesting news. I'll have to pass this on to my team of highly skilled analysists.

And by analysists, I mean "extremists under my command whose sole objective is to create a new world order in which I am ruler."

[Ayingel 24]

No, no safer.  When we went to Hoover Dam in July, we had to stop at a Homeland Security checkpoint before we entered, so, you know...we wouldn't car bomb the dam and kill a whole lot of people.  You know the soffisticated method of detecting bombs they used?

They poked at our car topper a couple times and then asked us what was in it.

Yeah...

←

are you serious?!

that's freaking awsome!

[Drake 53]

If by "awesome" you mean "stupid" and "paranoid" then I agree.

[Ayingel 24]

yeah...its funny actually

[GI_Admiral 2]

OMg...don't mock them...

They do such hard work...I salute them!

[Tsl 6]

Well....it was really hot out..... :p

[GI_Admiral 2]

Yeah...they do such hard work...and the heat must have been unbearable...all that checking all day....

[Ayingel 24]

props, to them, i know, but i mean, cmon...only the topper?

[Chickenman 9]

Well....it was really hot out.....

←

I doubt it was hotter outside than the temperature of an explosion. :p

[Tsl 6]

Yeah, but they're way out from the dam, so they probably wouldn't get exploded, y'know? I don't even think the unleashed river would get to them.

[TheUnknown 35]

No, I think in many ways, we are LESS safe. The Iraq war provided the terrorists with a nice little recruitment video. That plus the assclown in the White House has tried to increase the limits on arsenic and mercury in the water (I know that's off the subject, but what good is killing people thousands of miles away when our water can kill us?).

I think airport security may be better (don't really know), but subway security is crap, shipping containers still go unchecked, police are underfunded, and so on. And like I said, what good is fighting terrorists overseas when they can just come over here and bomb the subways?

[Radioactive Isotope 25]

but they still have to get over here, purchase materials, build the bombs, plant them, ect.

[Drake 53]

Purchasing and building are easy. Anyone can do it if they have the Internet. The key would be to get it into North America, the UK, etc. However, as we've all seen before, the terrorists don't need to attack those countries. There are plenty of targets outside of, for lack of a better word, "safe" countries. Embassies, trains, tourist hotspots, etc.

As long as there are people in power who have an opinion, there will always be someone who disagrees with them to the extremest extent. Terrorism will never go away. In fact, in my opinion, all this war on terror...oh sorry...global struggle against violent extremism is doing is giving the terrorists more power. Broadcasting the attacks and using fear tactics in the media to rile up the public is only serving to do exactly what the terrorist want. If we help increase the terror that the terrorists created, then they've won.

[Radioactive Isotope 25]

it's a no-win situation. we can't give them more power by panicking, but at the same time, we can't ignore what they're doing.

[Drake 53]

Precisely. The UK had the right idea. They didn't let the terror affect them.

[GI_Admiral 2]

They didn't let the terror affect them...

...

as Blair goes and now has conferences about upping security :p