Friday, October 20, 2006

Chernoff on the Internet and Terrorists

On Monday DHS head Chernoff spoke about people who train themselves to be terrorists via the Internet, saying they could be a threat. No kidding, but this is nothing knew. It's always hard to find self-trained criminals, especially before they strike, since they aren't actually criminals yet. But why is this different with the Internet? Was the Unabomber any less of a threat because he didn't use the Internet? How about Timothy McVie?

Terrorists and criminals use planes, cars, cell phones, books, pens, knives and shoes and we don't talk much about preventing them from doing so. So they also use the Internet, so what? The point is virtually everyone uses all of these things, that's what progress is. So can we stop being afraid of the most recent communications revolution?

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