What do you want to fight: terrorism or death?

Dr. Erica Frank of the Emory University School of Medicine provides a wonderful cost-benefit analysis of the resources we have misdirected to the "war on terror." In reports posted on several news sites this morning, Dr. Frank notes that on September 11, 2001, 1800 more Americans died from common diseases than from the terrorist attacks. And those disease-related deaths have kept happening at that rate every day since 9/11. Yet we ignore the mundane and divert our attention and limited government resources to the spectacular.

Osama vs. Katrina

While I prefer not to pile onto the bandwagon of blame over whether or not the government has responded to Hurricane Katrina with sufficient speed and determination, one aspect of the government's disaster response has bubbled to my attention this morning. An AP article this morning, "First Responders Warned of Change," notes that since Homeland Security subsumed FEMA in March 2003, a grea deal of the training and equipment provided to emergency personnel has been aimed toward terrorist attacks rather than natural or accidental disasters.

Again, our disaster agencies (and there could be a double meaning in that phrase) need to look at the real threats facing the country. Terrorists have staged three major attacks on American soil in the last 15 years (World Trade Center 1993, one in Oklahoma City 1995, and WTC/DC 2001). On his best day, Osama managed to kill 3000 people and wreck four planes and handful of buildings. Hurricanes have hit the country every year, causing massive evacuations and economic disruption. Katrina has destroyed entire towns and cities, killed thousands who remain to be counted, and pushed us toward a worldwide energy crisis. Which threat poses the greater danger to the US? The numbers and the aftermath suggest hurricanes beat Osama.

If I'm a federal official trying to spend as wisely as possible a finite amount of taxpayers' money, I have to set priorities, and I have to base those priorities on a clear risk analysis. Our disaster responders should prepare for as many dangers as they can, but if they have to make choices about where to spend their money, they should address the biggest, most imminent threats first. The past week appears to show that the biggest threat to our civilization comes not from a few wackos in a cave, but from Mother Nature herself.

Mistakes in London

Unpleasant news from London: leaked documents and CCTV footage contradict all of the major claims the London police made to justify their July 22 shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. The New York Times and BBC offer coverage. Among key points:

• de Menezes was wearing a denim jacket, not the alleged unusually bulky overcoat.
• de Menezes walked casually through the station, stopping to pick up a newspaper, and ran only when he saw the next train arriving -- rather typical behavior in any subway.
• de Menezes was physically restrained by an officer before being shot.

Also of interest is this Boston Globe article about profiling not by police but by regular citizens on the bus.

Chertoff's Trick Question

In an interview in today's USA Today, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff defends TSA's information-collection plans with a remarkable false dilemma:

"Would you rather give up your address and date of birth to a secure database and not be pulled aside and questioned," he said, "or would you rather not give it up and have an increased likelihood that you're going to be called out of line and someone's going to do a secondary search of your bag and they're going to ask you a lot of personal questions in the full view of everybody else?"

Neat trick! Set two aspects of our right to privacy against each other so it sounds like we really only have a right to one or the other! You can keep your personal identifiying information to yourself or you can avoid a warrantless search of your bag. I thought we were entitled to both! More sinisterly, it sounds like Chertoff is saying we can either give up our privacy rights the easy way or the hard way. Rather like the police banging on the door and saying "Let us in or we break it down!" Or perhaps the better analogy is from Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, in which the protagonist Rubashov is given a choice by his Soviet interrogators: either he can confess, cooperate in a public show trial, and be executed, or he can maintain his innocence and be shot summarily as an administrative case without any further ado. Some choice.

Thinking like a terrorist

While I have no experience with trying to blow up mass transit or other civilian targets, a little thought experiment helps illustrate the dangers of the shoot-to-kill policy that police seem ready to adopt against suspected suicide bombers. Imagine you are a committed terrorist, dedicated to the proposition of strapping explosives to yourself and creating maximum mayhem by your glorious martyrdom in some major infidel metropolis. You're not going to grab the nearest stick of dynamite and race nervously down to the bus depot. You're going to prepare for you mission. You're going to check out your targets ahead of time, determine the routines and tactics of security forces and regular passersby in the area, and figure out the best way to sneak your package in. You're going to pay particular attention to the behavior that draws police attention and train yourself not to exhibit that behavior. If you know the police are inclined to stop and frisk (or just up and shoot) young men wearing heavy coats in warm weather, you'll find a way to hide your explosives without wearing a heavy coat, or you'll just wait for cooler weather. If you know police are keeping an eye out for lumpy backpacks with wires sticking out, you'll craft a bomb that fits more neatly into your luggage. You'll be careful not to get chemical burns or stains on your clothes and hands. You'll know where you are going and what time you need to be there so you don't get stuck pacing suspiciously in front of your target waiting for the optimal detonation time. And when a policeman does appear in the area, you won't break out in a sweat; you'll simply smile confidently and keep your finger on the cell-phone trigger, revelling in the knowledge that you will take not only civilian lives but the life of one of the instruments of the infidel State's authority.

Consider that if this casual observer is smart enough to figure out this much about avoiding police suspicion, so is the much more motivated terrorist. Arguably, the only people who will exhibit nervousness and other "suspicious behavior" in front of police will be the following groups:

1. Sloppy terrorists, who deserve to be shot, but who in their sloppiness are rather likely likely to be caught by sharp police work well before they get to the point of walking downtown with an assembled explosive device;
2. Innocent bystanders whose suspicious behavior is wholly unrelated to terrorism or the presence of the police;
3. Innocent bystanders who read the news, know that police are on a hair trigger, and who, on the approach of armed officers, become understandably nervous, knowing that their lives are at risk.
   

Considering these possibilities, it would seem the shoot-to-kill policy could have greater potential to kill civilians than suicide bombers. (The policy's score so far in England: innocent civilians -- 1, suicide bombers -- 0.)

How not to get shot in the head

I hate it when my fears are confirmed. Last week I wrote about the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting in London. Today Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post reports that the International Association of Police Chiefs is affirming shoot-to-kill policies for dealing with suspected suicide bombers. Evidently that State is getting ready to justify taking a citizen's life without due process, without even probable cause, but simply in the interest of stopping someone who "fits a certain behavioral profile." According to the IAPC, you can be shot in the head if you exhibit "multiple anomalies":

• wearing a heavy coat in warm weather
• carrying a briefcase, duffel bag or backpack with protrusions or visible wires [watch where you put your I-Pod]
• displaying nervousness
  
• avoiding eye contact [evidently we are always supposed to look cops straight in the eye]
  
• sweating excessively [work out at the gym and cool down completely before stepping outside]
• bearing chemical burns on one's clothing or stains on one's hands
• mumbling prayers [perhaps you are safe if you shout your prayers? or should you simply keep the Holy Ghost at bay in public places all together?]
• pacing back and forth in front of a venue [don't wait for anyone in a public place]

I thought that maybe the United States would take a more Constitutional approach to dealing with suspects in public places than the British police, that maybe we would show a little more restraint and respect for the concept of "innocent until proven guilty." But the Post article offers this grim quote from Miami Police Chief John F. Timoney:

I can guarantee you that if we have, God forbid, a suicide bomber in a big city in the United States, 'shoot to kill' will be the inevitable policy.... It's not a policy we choose lightly, but it's the only policy.

The only policy? I will grant the Scylla-and-Charybdis dilemma police face in dealing with suspected suicide bombers:

"The police standard operating procedure of addressing a suspect and telling them to drop their weapon and put their hands up or freeze is not going to work with a suicide bomber," said Bruce Hoffman, author of "Inside Terrorism" and a terrorist expert at the Rand Corp. "You're signing your own death warrant if you do that."

...but the dilemma is still a di-lemma -- i.e., the police have two choices. Police, like all humans, will always make errors; they must choose which sort of errors they will more likely make. Again, the question boils down to whether police should err on the side of liberty or security.

Let's put the moral dilemma this way: Imagine you are a police officer. Which moral responsibility would you rather bear:

1. Indirect responsibility for the property damage, injury, and/or death caused by a suicide bomber whom you fail to subdue; or
2. Direct responsibility for the death of an innocent person whom you mistake for a suicide bomber and shoot dead?

Better yet, put faces on that dilemma: To which parents/spouses/children would you rather have to explain your actions: those of the suicide bomber's victims, or those of the innocent victim of your shoot-to-kill policy?

By the way, for those of you looking for other historical examples to enliven the debate, Page 2 of the Post article does mention Amadou Diallo ("41 Times").

Pinpricks

From Charley Reese, "Nobody Attacks Civilization," on Antiwar.com:

Terrorist tactics work because we live in a wired world. Ten or 12 people can set off a few bombs in London, and the world turns its electronic eyes on the story and chats, discusses and shows video clips until some other event distracts it. The media attention and the inflated rhetoric of politicians magnify the terrorist act far beyond its actual import.

These attacks – pinpricks, really, in terms of any damage they do to national power – cannot be completely stopped. A few malcontents inspired by someone's rhetoric can get together and set off a bomb or two or shoot some people. Terrorists should be considered criminals, and their acts as ordinary crimes. Physically dealing with terrorists is properly ordinary police work. There is no war involved.

...remember that terrorist attacks are primarily media events. You still have more to fear from the flu or accidents than you do from terrorists.

Perspective: Osama vs. Ford, GM, Toyota, et al.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cheerfully reports that highway fatalities dropped to a 30-year record low last year. In 2004, only 42,636 people died on America's highways. Alcohol played a role in 16,694 of those deaths. Motor vehicles killed 4641 pedestrians.

Let's see, Osama's boys killed 3000 people on September 11, 2001. In response, we went to war with two countries, passed the Patriot Act, and spent ourselves another trillion dollars in the hole (and counting). Yet every month we kill each other faster with our ever-larger motor vehicles without any great hue and cry raised to shut down the highways or at least make everyone ride bicycles. Irresponsible drinking outdoes 9/11 by more than a factor of 5 every year, yet the government doesn't ban alcohol ads or order cruise missile strikes on Milwaukee and St. Louis. My fellow pedestrians face a greater risk of death under the wheels of careless roadhogs than we do from al-Qaeda, but I'll bet the transportation bill just passed by Congress has little funding for increased sidewalk safety.

No, I'm not arguing that we should ban automobiles or even alcohol. But it seems odd that we accept the highway death toll as an unavoidable fact of life in our motorized society, acceptable losses, while a tiny fraction of that death and destruction caused by terrorism warrants military mobilization and revocation of various civil rights.

What am I afraid of?

This blog is supposed to be a declaration against fear, an exhortation to all citizens to stop being such fraidy-cats and accept the burdens of freedom. Yet I speak regularly of my own fear of government. I guess I'm not saying we should fear nothing (I've always thought those "No Fear" logoes on t-shirts and other junk are silly). Fear is a healthy response to bad things, but only as long as we maintain control of that fear, and only as long as that fear arises in proper proportion to the various dangers that surround us.

So what's out there to inspire fear?

Terrorists? Yes, there are bad dudes* who want to break things and kill people. Thanks to the wonders of science, psychopaths of all inclinations have access to weapons of increasing capacity for destruction.

But what about governments? Bad dudes don't always hide in caves in Afghanistan (or apartments in Miami, London, Madrid, etc.) scheming to get hold of TNT, C-4, anthrax, and plutonium. Some bad dudes, generally those with better people skills, realize they can wreak even greater destruction and enjoy more perks by obtaining public office. A bad president or prime minister can oppress innocents through war, judicial action, taxation, etc.

So why have I chosen to criticize the fear of terrorism while promulgating my fear of governments?

I certainly recognize valid reasons for fearing terrorists. Terrorists can destroy cities and kill millions, at least in theory. The assassin of Archduke Ferdinand was able to spark World War I. On September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden's minions managed to kill 3000 and put a big dent in the American economy (short-term dip in consumer confidence, long-term fiscal reallocation to massive defense and Homeland Security spending).

But in a hundred years, Osama will likely be no more prominent in the history books than the anarchist bomb-throwers of the late 19th and early 20th century. Osama is a featherweight compared to the real demons of history: Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot -- all leaders of governments whose power was not properly checked. Corrupt governments have killed more people, destroyed more wealth, imprisoned and oppressed more innocents than Osama ever will. And in America, Osama can't destroy the Constitution; only our cowardly Congress can pass and extend the "Patriot" Act.

I would thus argue that, dangerous as Osama and other terrorists may be, we have much more at stake in ensuring that our government (along with our citizenry) does not abandon the principles of liberty that make America the greatest achievement of Western civilization. Instead of calling 9-1-1 every time a shady character takes a picture of the Empire State Building, the common citizen does better to direct his vigilance toward voting and otherwise participating in politics to make sure his elected representatives preserve the Constitutional system of checks and balances.

Am I afraid of some psychopath detonating a nuclear bomb in Times Square? Absolutely. Am I afraid of the government revoking the Bill of Rights? Absolutely. The juicy question is, which am I more afraid of? Which are you more afraid of?

Or, at risk of creating a false dilemma, phrase it this way: if you could stop the complete destruction of New York City** by revoking the Bill of Rights, would you do it?

-------------------------
*Dudettes -- er, women -- don't seem nearly as inclined as men to break things and kill people. Hmmm....
**Replies from Red Sox fans will be viewed as biased. ;-)

Looking different is not probable cause

For perspective on racial profiling and warrantless searches, see "Black Men Can't Run," an excellent personal narrative from Paul Myers in the UK Guardian. We require police to have warrants for searches for a reason: when we give the State authority to conduct arbitrary searches, we open the door for officers of the State to act on personal and institutional prejudices, which will lead to an increased number of violations of civil rights among people who look or act differently.

Today's history snippet

Among my summer reading is Joachim C. Fest's biography of Hitler*. Hitler had been Chancellor for a month when, on February 28, 1933, the Reichstag was set ablaze. The fire aggravated fears of possible Communist-sponsored terror and revolution and gave Hitler a pretext for expanding state power with an emergency decree "for the protection of the people and the state." Fest talks about how conservatives who had helped bring Hitler to power, thinking they could use him for their own purposes, facilitated the establishment of Nazi dictatorship:

The decisive factor was that the conservatives made no effort to preserve the rights of habeas corpus. This "fearful gap" meant that henceforth there was no limit to outrages by the state. The police could arbitrarily "arrest and extend the period of detention indefinitely. They could leave relatives without any news concerning the reasons for the arrest and the fate of the person arrested. They could prevent a lawyer or other persons from visiting him or examining the giles on the case. . . . They could crush their prisoner with work, give him the vilest food and shelter, force him to repeat hatead slogans or sing songs. They could torture him. . . . No court would ever find the case in its files. No court had the right to interfere, even if a judge unofficially obtained knowledge of the circumstances."**

Protesters declaring equivalence between Nazi Germany and post-9/11 America go a little too far. Still, one cannot read the history of Hitler's seizure of power without seeing some parallels to actions undertaken by the American government in the name of fighting terrorism. Reading history gives us good examples of how fear can lead democratic republics down the wrong path.

*Joachim C. Fest, Hitler, Verlag Ullstein, 1973. English translation by Richard and Clara Winston, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.
**Fest, p. 414, quoting Arnold Brecht, Vorspiel zum Schweigen: Das Ende der deutschen Republik, Vienna, 1948.

Jean Charles de Menezes

The UK is not the US, right? We don't have anything to worry about when British police shoot an innocent man, right?

Consider: British police spot a man wearing a bulky coat in the London Underground. They chase the man into a subway car, pin him to the floor, and shoot him several times. Jean Charles de Menezes, 27-year-old Brazilian, and innocent man, dies. Al-Qaeda is laughing: they no longer have to sacrifice their own operatives to kill innocent people. Western authorities will do it for them.

I don't hate cops. but I live in increasing fear of their power over our lives. Apparently, in response to the July 7 mass transit bombings, London police now can justify killing a subdued suspect (suspected of what? running? bad summer fashion sense?). Do American cops operate under the same rules of engagement? If they do, any citizen who wants to survive a trip outdoors will have to follow these rules:

• Don't wear anything unusual.
• Don't make any sudden moves.
• Don't go anywhere near places under police surveillance (contact your local PD for a complete list of currently surveiled terrorist suspect sites).
  
• Don't look grouchy, nervous, or interested in anything.

There probably is no good policy reform that would have avoided this tragedy. It's not the first time the police have shot an innocent person, and it won't be the last, as long as police have to chase bad dudes and make split-second decisions. But the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes provides a very vivid example of the danger of letting our fears of terrorism rule our daily lives. In the pursuit of terrorists, in their fear of more bombings, London police have killed an innocent man, without trial, without appeal.

Rationale

Fear threatens free speech and freedom in general. Jihadist cowards, afraid of the possibility that their sons, daughters, and wives might choose the freedom of the Western world over their stifling traditions, attack the softest targets they can find, killing innocents. Trembling citizens, rattled by these attacks and by the propaganda of their governments, acquiesce to increasing restrictions (random searches on the subway, watch lists with no clear due process rights, GPS locators mandated in cell phones, police authorized to shoot to kill suspicious individuals wearing bulky overcoats) in the futile hope that increasingly powerful police and military organizations can ensure that nothing bad will happen ever again.

I feel compelled to act against that fear and the encroachment on freedom. But what is one person to do? Where does one find the lever, the fulcrum, and the Archimedean place to stand to move a fearful populace (and an increasingly fearsome government) back toward the freedoms on which America was founded?

Some might argue blogging is the antithesis of action, or at best a very pale form of action. Speech is action, sacred action, but blogging is not necessarily action. For one thing, there is no guarantee that the blogger's words will be heard. One can speak all one wants, but communication, by definition, is an interaction between sender and receiver. The blogger is sending, but if no one is receiving, no communication takes place. Blogging sounds a lot like a tree falling in the woods while everyone else is at the beach.

So what is the point of a blog with the title, “Patriot, Act!” Does the blog live up to its own title, or is the title nothing more than a play on punctuation?

I offer the following reasons for this blog. You, gentle reader, may evaluate these reasons and the blog as you see fit.

1. I want to add my voice to what so far seems, much to my distress, to be a minority of Americans who recognize the danger of sacrificing freedom for their own false hopes and the government's false promises of security.

2. I want to publicize arguments that others may use to justify and promote political action.

3. I want to organize and expand my own ideas in an attempt to clarify my philosophy, if not for the world, then for myself.

4. I want to test my First Amendment rights to make sure they are still in effect.

5. If those rights are not still in effect as they ought to be, I want to provoke a reaction from the powers that be, in hopes of setting the stage for a forum (e.g. public discussion, media attention, court battle) that will offer patriots a chance to re-establish those rights.

6. I want to promote my vision of the inalienable human rights every person should hold sacred and every social contract should protect.

As a speech teacher, I tell my students that public speaking is a bedrock of civilized democratic society. In forming a society, we have abandoned force as a means of solving problems. Instead, we appeal with our words to the emotion, reason, and moral sense of our fellow citizens. I thus exercise my freedom of speech here in hopes of preserving civilized democratic society.

Where have all the conservatives gone?

One should not ascribe much credibility to online polls, but consider this distressing result: seeking a little conservative solace at The Weekly Standard, I clicked on their Question of the Week:

Following the terrorist attacks on London earlier this month, police in New York City began conducting random searches of bags at entrances to the subway. Do you believe these searches are constitutional? Do you believe they are necessary?
*Yes to both
*No to both
*They are constitutional but unnecessary
*They are unconstitutional, but they are necessary

I clicked on “No to both” and eagerly awaited some comforting results from my fellow conservatives. Alas, no such results were forthcoming. At the time I participated in the poll (08:30 CDT), the results were as follows:

Yes to both 66%
No to both 10%
They are constitutional but unnecessary 9%
They are unconstitutional, but they are necessary 14%

I thought conservatives stood against this sort of big-government intrusion into our daily lives. Instead, this (again, unscientific) poll suggests that a large majority of conservatives are willing to ignore or wrongly interpret the Constitution to justify random searches of any citizen who has the nerve to poke his head out of his house and try traveling through his country. Remember, “random” means the search is based on nothing remotely resembling probable cause, on nothing at all, really. A random search is the most arbitrary intrusion possible into our daily activities. Where are the conservatives who should bristle at such government behavior?