The attacks were horrific and nothing anyone says will ever change that. We all saw the images and we all felt the pain. However this does not mean we should be scared, by being scared we let the terrorists win.
Many of you will remember this cover of the "newspaper" the Sun. It shows the academic John Tulloch injured after the attacks. The important thing however is the fact that around his face the words "Terror Laws: Tell Tony he's right" are written, insinuating that John Tulloch had spoken to the Sun and that he did indeed support Tony Blair's views (At this instance this would mean increasing the time a terrorist suspect can be held without trial being extended to 90 days). This was actually contrary to Tolloch's views and he is quoted as saying "Not in my name" during an interview. A full article can be found here.This shows that even victims of terror attacks can see that simply making terror laws more extreme and intruding on civil liberties does not equate a safer society. It also goes to show that images in the media are used to manipulate feelings for political gains without necessarily representing the feelings of those involved.
Now why do I bring this back up you may be asking? Well it seems that terror has again reared it's ugly head bringing with it the question of safety procedures and civil liberties. On Christmas Day 2009 a man attempted to detonate an explosive on a plane in Detroit (article here). The attempted bomber carried the explosives within his pants meaning normal techniques for searching personnel did not pick up on this allowing him to board the plane and attempt the attack.
What can possibly be done to stop people doing this all the time you ask? How about having naked pictures of every passenger taken in order to find any concealed weaponry which could be taken onto planes. Crazy you say? Apparently not. Now this may just be me but I personally do not wish to have naked images of myself taken for security reasons which are flawed to begin with. At what point do we stop with scanners all together and just have people periodically strip off and have full cavity searches before they are allowed to board a flight?
Now lets say these scanners stop anyone wearing explosive unddies from boarding flights thus cutting out this possibility for terrorists. Would this stop attacks on planes? Of course not. This bomber did not simply decide that he wanted to put explosives in his pants just for the fun of it. No, the group he was working with saw the current searches and found a way around them. No matter what precautions are put in the way if someone wants to blow up a plane then they will find a way. Even if it were possible for it to be made impossible for a bomb to be taken onto a plane then the target would simply change to another. We seem to forget at these times that car bombs can just as easily be made.
Moreover it was not simply a flaw in security at the airport itself but a fault in system put in place to monitor terror suspects. The US had intelligence capable of stopping this event happening, namely having the attempted bomber on a terror suspect list (link). This shows that the attack could easily have been stopped without this new costly (and many suspect ineffective) scanner.
Now what we seem to forget is that the UK has had a long history of terrorism (link), how do people forget the IRA???? Now I realise that the IRA and Al Quieda are very different organisations but the effect is the same, innocent British people are killed. So how is it that suddenly all life must change forever because of terrorist attacks? Now putting security doors on planes I can see being nesicarry but how is taking naked pictures of people going to help? Paranoia in this country is rife and we are at risk of giving up all liberties before we know it. People are now being stopped and searched or even arrested for taking pictures under new terror legislation (link). This is not a stand alone case by any means and if you were to look around on the page provided previous there will be many many cases similar to this.
Keep alert, stay free.
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