"Lone terrorist" bill

[Thomas Shaddack]

On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
> Metal cans make excellent timers, too.

In local Police Museum, back during the communism era, there was an
exhibition of the tools of "capitalist saboteurs". One of them was a
device for delayed electrical ignition of haystacks. The timer was a pot
with a lid. There were two contacts mounted on the lid, and a metal plate
in the pot, laid on the layer of dried pea. You added water, the pea
sterted to swell and rise the metal plate. When the plate touched the
contacts, you were far away.

ANYTHING can be used as a "terrorist tool". The world is crammed full with
such toys, all you need is to keep your eyes open.

The time of fear and suspicion comes into the neighbourhood. A workshop in
a garage can become a set of terrorism tools, a bookshelf with computer
security books can find itself turned into a "proof of conspiring to
commit an act of cyberterrorism", and gods forbid you ever studied
chemistry and possess any "forbidden knowledge".

And even if you get a "fair process", a good prosecutor can paint you as
an "armed and dangerous for the entire world", as the jurors are usually
everything but tech-savvy... :(



But maybe there is a grain of hope here. If the accesses to informations
are monitored and the suspects are being apprehended according to the
informations they look up, what about the "possible terrorists" posing as
journalists[1]? Journalists have to look up data for their stories, so it
is part of their profile - so let's match or mimic the other parts.
Journalists have the key to the Public Opinion, or at least its part. If
they will start matching profiles, and being monitored and considered
dangerous, they will get pissed. If enough of them get pissed, their
articles and/or news coverages could reflect it, with trickle-down effect
on the Sheeple. This of course presumes we manage to guess the
apprehension algorithms of TIA. Something like profile jamming. Could it
work? Or is the idea taken out of the oven too soon and is still raw
inside and inedible?

[1] Journalists can be even unregistered ones, amateurs, bloggers, anyone
with significantly wide public reach. Of course, if the registered ones,
the ones pertaining to the Big Media, will start getting into hot water,
it could have much better impact.