IP: A query for IP readers on resistance, and a possibly novel observation

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 15:02:36 -0700
> From: Brad Templeton <brad () templetons com>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
>
> For IP...
>
> In engaging in the debate over the coming war on privacy and freedom to
> travel, it occurs to me that there are good examples of how effective
> such techniques are in the oppressive regimes of the present and past.
>
> In the overused example, the Nazis had a tight (though computerless)
> regime which required everybody to carry documentation papers and
> present them as they traveled, and a terrifying and regimenting secret
> service performing surveillance on the German people.   None of the
> advocates of reduced privacy would say we should go nearly as far as
> the Nazis did.   Yet there was an active resistance, both with dissidents
> and foreign agents, which regularly engaged in major acts of sabotoge
> and attack against the German infrastructure, usually against protected
> non-civilian targets.
>
> Recent history is also full of repressive, low-privacy regimes where
> nonetheless the opposition blows things up, kills members of goverment
> etc.   Those missiles we saw fired in Kabul tuesday night provide a
> perfect example of that.
>
> So I would be interested in gathering from readers (mail to me, I'll
> summarize) some examples of such activities in highly controlled and
> repressive societies.  The activities were often not called terrorism,
> but the logistic difficulties of them are the same, if not harder.  If
> I can say, "Even if you lock down society and travel as much as Nazi
> Germany, you won't stop them" it may be a convincing argument.
>
> Mail me at brad () templetons com
>
> ------------
>
> Now a 2nd observation that has come to me which I have not seen talk of.
> The media refer to the 18 hijackers (allegedly distributed 5-5-4-4) as
> suicide terrorists.   This assumes that they all knew of the plan.  In
> theory, only the pilots needed to know of the actual plan.  The pilots might
> well have locked themselves in the cockpits and done all the dirty work.
> The accomplices on the ground, and even most of the helpers overseas, need
> not have known.  They might simply have thought they were in an ordinary
> hijacking, or an attempt to steal half a billion dollars worth of
> airplanes!
>
> While clearly this is not certain, it makes some sense.  With a plot this
> big, this horrendous, you want to inform as few people as possible, since
> everybody who knows is a risk that the secret gets out.  And everybody who
> knows it's suicide has a distinct probability of chickening out.  We may
> never know what percentage of suicide bombers sent on their missions fail
> to carry them out.  I doubt the success rate is 100%.  In fact, I would
> speculate that the odds that one or more of a group of 18 would chicken out
> is more than the leaders might want to risk.   It's even slightly possible
> that this played some role in the downing of flight 93, though this in no
> way diminishes the heroism of the passengers.
>
> I speculate on this not to reduce the guilt of the non-pilots who were
> invovled, but as a possible explanation of how you might get so many
> skilled terrorists willing to suicide.   In theory, this could have been
> done with just 4 dedicated suicide terrorists, and 50 support crew convinced
> they were involved in a theft or hostage based hijacking.
>
> Perhaps the FBI even knew something of the plot, but because only a very
> few knew the dark internal secret, they didn't take it as seriously as they
> should have.  Do you all recall how the FBI and SS took down an ISP in Texas
> last week alleging it was being used by arab terrorist groups?  Is there
> a connection?
>
> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010906/wr/mideast_usa_internet_dc_3.html



For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/