Your Security

Need evidence that the Patriot Act isn't working? Look no further than the incident that occurred in Chapel Hill North Carolina. As some of my friends have blogged, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar apparently ran down 9 students on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill. When questioned about why he did it, Taheri-azar claimed that he did it to avenge the American treatment of Muslims. So how did this happen? There are lots of explanations about why people do criminal acts and then try to justify it with some sort of political motive. However, one thing is certain, the current incarnation of the Patriot Act can do little to stop these "one man army" types from waging war on the American people.

Jeff A. Taylor, a Charlotte resident and UNC graduate, writes:

"Box cutters, airliners, rental cars. This is how you make war on a free society from within. A Ryder truck, fertilizer, plastic barrels. These are the building blocks of terror. A quick mind and dark heart are the only two really indispensable... components for making mayhem."

He goes on to explain that the danger of the Patriot Act is not the obvious encroachment on civil liberties, but the false sense of security it gives us. The powers given to government agencies allows them to collect unprecedented amounts of information, however Taylor argues that the real intelligence need to prevent terrorism can not be mined from cell phone records or credit card account activities. Worse, the sheer amount of information collected creates the problem of information overload, whereby useful data can not be easily extracted from the noise of extraneous information.

The sad part is that politicians tout the Patriot Act as some sort of catch-all legislation that will prevent the next 9-11 attack. As evidence of its effectiveness lawmakers point to the lack of any further attacks since the act's inception. However this is a dangerous and faulty conclusion, one which ignores the very failures that lead to Sept 11th. Complacency and blind trust placed in government programs following the original World Trade Center attack gave citizens a false sense of security. In the years between the attacks, everyone believed the programs were working because there had not been another attack. This was not the case, and as a result it took a major terrorist act to call these programs into question. Unfortunately we seem to be traveling down this path again, only this time under the guise of the Patriot Act.