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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Selectric II who wrote (20462)	11/20/2001 9:29:20 AM
From: Michael M	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 59480

Without positive ID any feeling of security is definitely illusory. NO system is 100 percent foolproof and never will be but some systems are a lot more effective than others. For instance, my Bro (airline pilot) was laughing the other night about the "reinforced" cockpit door on his airplane. He said a decent-size evil-doer would probably need a two- row running start to hurl himself through the door. If you worry about such things, you may ask your airline of choice before you fly next time what system they used to secure the cockpit. Some, like JetBlue, made security the top priority and did a great job. Others were more focused on the bottom line.

To: Selectric II who wrote (20462)	11/20/2001 9:41:48 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

So, future Mohammed Attas will simply make sure their Visa is current when they board planes. You asked how 9-11 could have been prevented with ID cards and I explained how. I noticed that you did not find a flaw in my explanation. Now, you want to know how they will prevent future events. Unfortunately, we're always planning for the last attack, not the next attack. We got zapped on 9-11 because we never thought that hijackers would want to die and we trained pilots based on that assumption. We would have to set up criteria to be used in conjunction with the IDs and those criteria would have to anticipate how Atta might try to get around them. Whatever criteria we used, no matter how well we anticipated, they wouldn't guarantee anything, simply reduce the risk to, perhaps, an acceptable level. The problem is getting consensus on what is an acceptable risk. The public is notorious for its inability to react rationally to risk. We get hysterical about smallpox and expect heroic and expensive efforts from the government to protect us from it. Meanwhile we wrap our car around a tree. Before and after 9-11, we are safer in a plane than in a car, but we don't deal rationally with the difference. A national ID can buy us some risk reduction, not absolute safety. We have to assess the trade offs, which is why we look at pros and cons. I am not personally troubled by the notion of having a national ID. Uncle Sam has had me on its radar screen from the time I married an Air Force officer in 1964 until April of this year when I retired from federal service. They have my fingerprints. I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me. I understand that others are not as comfortable with the idea as I am but I am at a loss to understand how having a national ID would be a significant "burden." It's certainly less of a burden than standing in line for a couple of hours each time you get on a plane or cross a border. There is one potential risk in national IDs, the risk that the slippery slope and advancing technology will eventually lead us to Uncle Sam snooping on law abiding citizens. We have to interpret that risk in terms of the terrorist risk, both of which are hard to measure. And even if we could measure them, the public would react emotionally without reference to actual risk. Karen

To: Selectric II who wrote (20462)	11/20/2001 11:09:01 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

>>future Mohammed Attas will simply make sure their Visa is current when they board planes<< I think you're assuming facts that don't exist. It's a fact that most of the hijackers used false identities bolstered with fake IDs, including fraudulently obtained driver's licenses, pilot's licenses, and passports. No matter how many times this is mentioned, you never address it directly. It is theoretically possible for a terrorist to come to the US using nothing but his own legitimate passport, a legally obtained visa, and a legally obtained driver's license, but that isn't what happened. It is a fact that the events of 911 would not have transpired the way that they did transpire if they had been unable to obtain fraudulent IDs. Whatever else might have happened is speculation on your part. A truly motivated criminal can find ways to get around protective devices, such as locks on doors, but that doesn't keep us from locking our doors.