Re: London incidents

["Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick () ianai net>]

On Jul 12, 2005, at 6:16 AM, Jim Popovitch wrote:

> On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 19:20 +0930, Mark Newton wrote:
>
> > There's been -nothing- from the Brits to say that cellphones were
> > involved in their explosions;  And DHS says they haven't made any
> > recommendations one way or the other;  And there's no reason to
> > believe that the threat to the New York subway system is any higher
> > than usual;  And yet someone at the Port Authority has made a
> > unilateral decision to shut off the cells, and now if there -is- a
> > real emergency nobody can call 911.
>
> Basically it's damned if you do take action, damned if you don't.   
> Once
> again we see that you can't please all the people (yes, even those not
> using NYC tunnels) all the time.

No, it's damned if you take stupid action, damned if you do not do  
something you should.

People in charge of our security should not be allowed to take  
whatever action comes to mind in the name of security.  Intelligent,  
useful, competent decisions should be made.  If they cannot make  
them, we should find someone who can.

Billions of dollars, millions of person-hours, and more frustration  
than I can quantify is not a good price to pay for the infinitesimal  
increase in security (if any) we have received through decisions like  
this one.


> I think the world has shown that cellphones have been used over and  
> over
> to detonate explosive devices.  Why wait for it to be proved again
> before doing something?  AFAIK "Emergency Only" mode allows for 911
> calls, just not inbound/outbound calls.  Besides, the US (at least) is
> full of a lot of people who need to hang up the phone and start  
> driving
> good again.

Your logic is ... illogical.  If you cannot see why, I will not be  
able to explain it to you.  (But you probably feel safer knowing I  
can't pack a Zippo in my checked in baggage.)

As for the "Emergency Only" mode, the original poster said _power was  
cut_ to the repeaters.  Could you explain to me how this allows for  
911 calls please?


> -Jim P. (who is tired of being caught in traffic behind weaving,
> slowing/speeding, hand-waving and head-shaking, cellphone "drivers")

Not really relevant to the discussion at hand.

--
TTFN,
patrick