Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: QwikSand who wrote (45393)	9/19/2001 8:36:06 PM
From: cheryl williamson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Well, of course you are right: the nation's psyche has to heal. That does take some time. There's an interesting article in the internet version of Jane's. It is speculating on the real culprits behind all this. Apparantly Israeli defense intelligence has fingered 2 middle eastern organizers/psychopaths who they have been trying to assassinate for years. Believe me, it's worthy of John LeCarre'. I look at it like this: business has been looking for an excuse to implement video conferencing for some time now, but has always balked at the capital cost. Now, with air travel as it is, they may be induced into spending now & amortizing the cost w/a very favorable interest-rate climate. They'll get an additional tax benefit, save money on travel expenses and still connect up at least their own offices all around the world while keeping everyone safe. That's usually called a win-win. It's kind of ickky that sales reps & company officers have to be afraid of travelling, but the fact of the matter is, the business saves money over the long run & travel was getting more & more difficult anyway with all the nation's airports getting choked. They get used to the idea & pretty soon, it gets to be more & more the norm. So finally the day arrives when we get an "all clear" but the way business is done has changed somewhat. Now it's largely internet-based & it's ok with most everyone who does it. Selling the internet is, in part, getting people to change their habits. Conflict helps people to re-think what they do & why. No one asked for it to happen this way, but since it did, people will adapt.....

To: QwikSand who wrote (45393)	9/20/2001 1:42:25 AM
From: Nick Kline	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

I'm not shocked that we didn't know about this ahead of time. It's just very easy to do this kind of thing in a free society. They even had a black market that functioned somewhat in communist Russia. That's not saying that we shouldn't try to prevent terrorists, or do everything we can to catch them (I hope I didn't need to say that). But who knew ahead of time about Timothy McVeigh, or the first bombing of the world trade center, or any number of the biggest terrorist events? When we had huge domestic surveillance in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, we didn't know someone was going to kill JFK, or MLK, or John Kennedy. We didn't know that people were going to bomb school houses with children in them, we didn't know who was killing civil rights workers in the 60s. We did know some things about the FBI's political enemies such as that MLK had affairs (and I suppose we knew about JFK's too). It's important for the government to have good intelligence, but its naive to believe that omnipresent federal surveillance will give us complete protection. This is a delicate and complicated thing, the federal government's police power. We have to be very careful that this power is not abused. There are many examples where the FBI's intelligence lead to lots of arrests of criminals, but it also had lots of down sides too. I'm one person who is hoping that we slow down before we lose too many civil rights, rights that will be hard to recover once they are taken away. I've already read articles (in the wsj) reporting on suggestions that we pass new laws allowing deporting of people from other countries without due process, and escrow key registration has raised its silly head again (its too late now, and it was too late 10 years ago). Hey, a Sun point - does that famous encryption guy still work at Sun, was his name Whitfield Diffie (or maybe that is two last names put together). I'm totally in favor of a strong defense, but as the too much quoted phrase of Ben Franklin says, you shouldn't be too eager to give away your rights for some sense of freedom. -nick