Comments on: Post-9/11 antiterror technology: A report card

news analysis As Sept. 11 nears, News.com examines five useful ways of improving security--and five that should raise eyebrows.

[missingamerica]

Automating DNA Sweeps

I'm sure someday we'll see "sniffers" that can detect a person's DNA and instantaneously match him or her to a target list.

Shoot, you could perhaps even remotely target terrorists with miniscule drones equipped with such technology.

Problem is, just who would use it...the most famous fictional examples come from "Dune"; a powerful trade house named Harkonnen uses such technology in small "hunter/seeker" drones to kill their enemies.

Given such steller examples of business amorality as those exhibited by Skilling and Lay of Enron, Patricia Dunn of HP, the Hunt brothers in the silver market, T. Boone Pickens' current attempts to purchase and monopolize groundwater rights in Texas so he can squeeze Texas cities for an unavoidable human requirement, and on and on and on...

Well, I'd be lying if I said "I can't believe any business would ever attempt to gain some commercial advantage by eliminating a competitor or to silence a potential whistleblower using such technology"...

Paranoia? Damn, I hope so...

[zoomy1]

Discriminatory Remark - Smarter Translation Software...

I find it very racist, discriminatory, and anti-Islamic for you to suggest that Arabic is a language associated with terrorist groups. That was very inappropriate for you to even suggest that. Arabic is one of the most beautiful, powerful, and rich languages that existed in the past and exists today. Just because there are some crazy nuts (ie: terrorists) who happen to also speak Arabic does not mean that Arabic (or Islam) is associated with terrorism.
When Timothy Mcveigh carried out the Oklahoma City Bombing, should we then assume that English (or Christianity) is associated with terrorism?! Of course not, that would be ridiculous!!!
I can see the mass media has worked wonders on brainwashing you. I hope you can see through that, and I hope you can apologize to the thousands of readers who were offended by that comment.
Thank you for your time.

[Catgic]

Wake Up And Smell The Camel Dung

[i] ??very racist, discriminatory, and anti-Islamic for you to suggest that Arabic is a language associated with terrorist groups.?[/i]

Reset, [b]zoomy1,[/b] and reread the section [b]4. Smarter Translation Software.[/b] I did, and saw nothing in it that was ?racist, discriminatory, and anti-Islamic.?

The U.S. already has rapid and accurate real-time [i]Smarter ?English? Translation Software[/i] because [i]English[/i] requires no translation into [i]English[/u] except for a few words of [i]British English[/i] into [i] American English.[/i] Clearly, the U.S. has English speaking [i]Terrorists[/i] solidly covered regarding [i]Translation Software.[/i] Have you ever heard of [i]CARNIVORE, ECHELON [/i] and the new one no one has heard of yet?

The [i]Terrorists[/i] talk, [i]Uncle Sam[/i] listens and the [i] ?bad word? users[/i] get an early wake up call, ride in a [i]Black Helicopter[/i] and an all expense paid trip to GITMO or Leavenworth.

I expect the U.S. probably has [i]Smarter Translation Software[/i] to handle rapid and accurate real-time translation of Literary Arabic [اللغة العربية الفصحى‎ (fushā)] into American English, but for the range of localized colloquial, dialectal and regional varieties of Arabic as well as Pashtu, Somali and other languages it is another story.

Then there is [i]Farsi,[/i] the spoken language of Iran, which is not Arabic at all, but Persian. If they do not have [i]Smarter Translation Software[/i] for Farsi, it is needed.

Be the nice person that I know you are. Pull in you horns, and give Mrs. McCullagh?s [i]baby boy,[/i] Declan, a little slack. JP B-)

[Below Meigh]

Politically Incorrect

It is comments like these that isolate nations, religions and people. Not the remarks of the article, but of the reader. Do most know Arabic is backwards (read right to left). And ALL languages are beautiful, not just a few. You are prejudicing your language against others. How about the reader apologizing to those that died because they DIDN'T understand why they were victims of some "crazy nut" ? It is the Arab-muslim world that needs to clean up its own. If others have to get involved and intervene, then they will do it by their rules, not yours.

[Catgic]

Five Of One, Half Dozen Minus One Of The Other

?Some [anti-terror technologies] appear to be particularly useful and deserve to spread. Others raise privacy concerns and may not be all that effective.?

Kudos to you, Declan, as well as to contributing reporters Anne Broache and Michael Kanellos on an insightful camel?s nose sniff under the anti-terror technologies tent. You all did a fine job of discussing and highlighting the key technical and societal issues associated with anti-terror technology.

Let me offer a couple of comments.

About 15 years ago, the Saudi monarch and ruler at that time, King Fahd, took action to spend multi-millions of Riyals [& Dollars] to have Saudi Royal International Airports upgraded with the same kinds of anti-terrorist chemical ?sniffing,? backscatter X-ray, neutron-based baggage/cargo, video screening, detection, surveillance and monitoring equipment technologies you discussed in and have woven into your article. It seems that, at least publicly, the Saudi Arabs were acutely aware of the [i]Osama Bin Lada Arab Terrorist Threat[/i] well over a decade before we were in the U.S.

Regarding [i]Registered Traveler Certification - Clearance[/i] or [i]Clear? Registered Traveler[/i] [ http://www.flyclear.com/ ], as you wrote ?[commercial] air travelers are gradually separating into a two-class hierarchy??

If a citizen [i]voluntarily ?donates?[/i] $80 [http://$79.95|http://$79.95], along with submitting an in depth chronological, medical and behavioral personal history accompanied by their fingerprints and personal biological information that results in a clear security background check, they can sail through airport security around the [i]Security Screening Slog[/i] rope-lines. No more expending mega-minutes standing queued up waiting in long lines in front of a TSA screening station, time that once used to be spent in genteel relaxation in the Airline?s Club-Lounge. No more having to drag your bags and slog along with a [i]Cheshire Smile[/i] as you listen to someone?s [i]Aunt Martha[/i] telling you how pleased she is with all the TSA and airport security ? even if it takes a little longer.

It is not likely that [i]voluntarily ?donating?[/i] $80 a year to become a [i]Registered Traveler[/i] and submitting to an ongoing security background check and follow-on surveillance, monitoring and tracking of your personal life style, behavior and habits will remain truly [i]voluntary[/i] for much longer. At some point in the near future, as the government?s Total Information Awareness citizen database system matures and gains reliable nationwide real-time capacity and capability, everyone who wants to travel will be required to have a valid [i]REAL ID[/i] with a current [i]Clear? Registered Traveler Certification ? Endorsement.[/i]

?No one, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, shall be able to travel save he or she that has a [i]REAL ID[/i] with [i]Clear? Registered Traveler Certification ? Endorsement.[/i]? JP B-)

Joseph Poliakon
Space Coast, Florida

[swansat_kaching]

SWANsat - Going Wireless

Worldwide satellite internet broadband delivered to/from a blackberry-type handset is an amazing leap forward. The US Government will own the power plant that drives the communications payload. Capacity, they say, is 600 million connections per satellite.

swansat.com & iostarcorp.com

[Tui Pohutukawa]

I hope Americans realise

that they are on a fast track to a high-tech police state, the likes
of which would have made Adolf Hitler blush with envy. I hope
you good people will intervene, otherwise you will loose your
personal freedoms.

[normalityrelief]

Re: I hope Americans realise

I hope we do too. The problem is that so many people are frightened, and as such are willing to do whatever it takes to alleviate said fear. In addition to that, our shrewd as hell government knows it, and is willing to do whatever it takes to manipulate it (and they've got a practically unlimited budget!).

We need more people willing to accept the risk of living in a free society. If everybody would rather be secure, I can understand that, but security is about as far from freedom as you can get. If we are going to live in the manner in which this country was founded to provide, we have to accept that people will get hurt, people will get killed, and it is not always avoidable. Ideally, we will be able to come up with ways to minimize occurances of such terrible things without continuing to jeopardize our once unassailable beliefs.

(This turned out far longer than I intended!)