more on Op-Ed Columnist: May I See Your ID?

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 23:08:45 -0800
From: Simon Higgs <simon () higgs com>
Subject: Re: [IP] NYTimes.com Article: Op-Ed Columnist: May I See Your ID?
X-Sender: simon () higgs com
To: dave () farber net
Cc: nicholas () nytimes com, letters () nytimes com


At 02:56 AM 3/17/2004, Dave Farber wrote:

For IP. So this NY Times journalist is high from smoking the latest press 
releases?

I took a look at the American Library Association's "100 Most Frequently 
Challenged Books of 1990­2000", which can be found here:
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm

It turns out that aside from The Anarchist Cookbook (William Powell), which 
wasn't compulsory reading at my school, many of the other books that were 
challenged were required reading, such as:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain)
James and the Giant Peach (Roald Dahl)
Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

The main "anarchist cookbook" repository is actually run by the US 
government. The US Patent & Trademark Office is currently being ransacked 
by Homeland Security because of the liability of what are "years old public 
records". The latest victim is US Patent 3,060,165, Preparation of Toxic 
Ricin, which is now missing in action. Now, what does this imply for the 
scientific and technical community if legitimate scientific research and 
constitutionally protected intellectual property such as patents become 
censored? The NY Times author seems to think that a patent has the same 
free-speech value as child pornography.

What is worse, is to imply that the US has been spared from chemical and 
biological attacks because the knowledge hasn't been easy to get. This is 
nonsense. Lord Jeffrey Amherst used Smallpox as a weapon in 1763 - long 
before there were books on the subject. The same physical location was the 
source of the Anthrax mailings after 9/11. There have been 5 deaths 
associated with inhalational anthrax:

http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r011121p.htm

Now, if we're going to ban something that really kills people, then let's 
use real statistics. If we're going to ban the #1 killer, then let's ban 
automobiles:

Killed in car accidents  42,116*
Killed by the common flu 20,000*
Killed by murders        15,517*
Killed in airline crashes
(of 477m passenger trips)   120
Killed by lightning strikes  90*
Killed by Anthrax             5

http://www.unitedjustice.com/stories/stats.html

If you really want to be "safe" then go to the National Safety Council's 
web site and see what the odds of dying really are. If you actually 
understand what you see there, then you'll never let the chance of being in 
terrorist act bother you ever again. But you might just remember to wear a 
seat belt:

http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm


> Op-Ed Columnist: May I See Your ID?
>
> March 17, 2004
>  By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
>
> Someday we'll look back with shame at the infringements of
> civil liberties in the last few years.
>
> There's been a broad pattern of injustice to individuals
> (mostly Muslims) in the name of protecting security for the
> rest of us. Think of the detention of more than 1,200
> Muslim immigrants in the U.S., the jailing of children in
> an extralegal zone in Guantánamo, and the unending
> imprisonment, without access to lawyers, of "enemy
> combatants," even when they are American citizens.
>
> But that ground has been well poked over. For me, the
> tougher question is whether there are some areas where we
> should be more aggressive about sacrificing our liberties.
> In fact, I think there are two where we could significantly
> increase our security with a negligible cost in freedom.
>
> First, we should adopt a national ID card. Surprisingly,
> this is anathema to many conservatives. If the right is
> willing to imprison people indefinitely and send young
> people off to die in Iraq in the name of security, then why
> is it unthinkable to standardize driver's licenses into a
> national ID?
>
> More than 100 nations have some kind of national ID card.
> And the reality is that we're already moving toward a
> government ID system - using driver's licenses and Social
> Security numbers to prove who we are - but they neither
> protect our privacy nor stop terrorists. Instead, they
> simply promote identity theft.
>
> At least seven of the Sept. 11 hijackers, some living in
> Maryland hotels, managed to get Virginia ID cards or
> driver's licenses, which can be used as identification when
> boarding planes. Americans routinely travel to and from
> Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean with just a driver's
> license.
>
> Some U.S. officials privately fret that security may depend
> on a harried immigration officer in Maine who is handed a
> forged Guam or North Dakota driver's license. One
> undercover federal study underscored the vulnerability last
> year by using off-the-shelf materials to forge documents
> that were then used to get driver's licenses in seven
> states and the District of Columbia. The forgeries worked
> in each place attempted.
>
> So why not plug this hole with a standardized,
> hard-to-forge national ID card/driver's license that would
> have a photo, a fingerprint and a bar code that could be
> swiped to check whether the person is, for example, a
> terror suspect who should not be allowed onto a plane? We
> could simultaneously reduce identity theft and make life
> tougher for terrorists.
>
> The other area where I'd like to see a tougher approach has
> to do with "cookbooks" to make anthrax, sarin and other
> chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Over the last few
> years, I've collected a horrifying set of booklets,
> typically sold at gun shows or on the Internet, detailing
> how to make mustard gas, VX, anthrax or "home-brew nerve
> gas."
>
> "One of the greatest feelings in the world is knowing you
> have the technology to wipe out your whole neighborhood,"
> one booklet declares.
>
> Another book says: "Nerve gases have been called `the poor
> man's atom bomb,' with good reason. They make the World War
> I gases look like kid's stuff. I'm sure you'll be surprised
> how easy to make and use these little gems are." It offers
> advice on how to distribute the nerve gas to devastate a
> city, "using one or more ultralight aircraft."
>
> In fact, biological and chemical weapons are not quite that
> easy to make or use. But a cult or terrorist group,
> particularly if a member had a background in chemistry,
> could make sarin, just as the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan
> did before releasing it in the Tokyo subways in 1995.
>
> Sure, I cherish the First Amendment. But remember what
> Alexander Bickel, the eminent First Amendment scholar, told
> the Supreme Court when he argued on behalf of this
> newspaper in the Pentagon Papers case. Pressed by the
> justices on whether publication could be blocked if 100
> Americans would certainly die as a result, he reluctantly
> agreed: "I am afraid that my inclinations to humanity
> overcome the somewhat more abstract devotion to the First
> Amendment."
>
> W.M.D. cookbooks present such an exceptional situation.
> They have as little free-speech value as child pornography,
> and they are more dangerous. We have been largely spared
> chemical and biological attacks because the knowledge
> needed to make effective weapons hasn't been easy to get.
> Now in these cookbooks we're seeing "information
> proliferation" that empowers terrorists.
>
> In these exceptional circumstances, we are - I hate to
> admit it - better off banning books.
>
> E-mail: nicholas () nytimes com
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/17/opinion/17KRIS.html?ex=1080520831&ei=1&en=f52f2a1159ba3041
>
> -------------------------------------
> You are subscribed as simon () higgs com
> To manage your subscription, go to
>  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
>
> Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/


Best Regards,

Simon Higgs

--

The Blog: http://www.simonhiggs.com/

###




-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/