IP: ] Some articles to keep you scared

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 19:39:10 -0700
> From: Brad Templeton <brad () templetons com>
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
>
> >From Time Magazine/CNN poll of 1000 Americans, taken Sept 27
>
>
>
>
> Govt. Action:                                       Favour  Oppose
>
> Allow wire-tap phone conversations of suspected
> terrorists without obtaining permission from
> the courts:                                         68%     29%
>
> Allow Law Enforcement to hold people suspected of
> links to terrorist orgs in jail without bail for
> an unlimited amount of time:                        59%     38%
>
> Allow L.E. officials to intercept e-mail messages
> sent by anyone in the U.S. and scan them for
> suspicious words and phrases                        55%     42%
>
> Require everyone in the U.S. to carry an ID card
> issued by federal govt.                             57%     41%
>
> Require U.S. citizens of Arab descent to carry an
> ID card issued by federal govt.                     49%     49%
>
> Allow the federal govt. to hold Arabs who are
> U.S. citizens in camps until it can be determined
> whether or not they have links to terrorist orgs    31%!!!  65%
>
> Allow L.E. officials to stop people on the street
> for random searches:                                29%     69%
>
>
>
> This was more than 2 weeks after the attack that less than 2/3
> of the population opposed the idea of throwing them into camps.
> Large majorities approve expanded wiretap powers.
>
>
> Jump ahead to this week's Fortune magazine, and this article on
> the threat of techno-terrorism:
>
> http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=204391
>
>         After the Sept. 11 attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
>         included cyberterrorism among the potential threats that "are
>         front and center to us," and the Justice Department proposed
>         legislation giving it the power to prosecute computer crimes as
>         acts of terrorism.  Computer-security experts say the country's
>         technostructure is vulnerable to attacks that could cripple
>         corporate America, cause billions of dollars in business losses,
>         and disable the global positioning satellite (GPS) system,
>         potentially wreaking havoc in the skies. "The most devastating
>         scenarios we look at today that are not chemical, biological, or
>         radiological tend to be cyber-attacks," says Neil Livingstone,
>         CEO of GlobalOptions, a risk-management firm that employs many
>         FBI and Navy SEALs veterans. "You can have a greater impact
>         using fewer resources, and you have a greater certainty of not
>         being apprehended."
>
> This provides the first coverage of the raid that shut down the Infocom
> ISP in texas.  It includes the start of a pattern I have seen of people
> being against Al-Jazeera, about the only free press in the Arab world.
>
> Even scarier is the comments from a sidebar on how to catch terrorists
> online...
>
>      http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=204392
>
>
>          Even encrypted data are useful, Cohen (chairman of Narus, which
>          sells snoop software) points out, because anyone using such
>          technology, as the terrorists allegedly did in their e-mail,
>          would be waving a red flag. They could be profiled by tracking
>          whom they are communicating with and at what frequency, even if
>          what they were saying couldn't be decoded.



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