From: Blanc Weber <blancw@microsoft.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 05:27:52 +0800
To: "'cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: RE: SECURITY GUARD
Message-ID: <c=US%a=_%p=msft%l=RED-81-MSG-960731175709Z-24701@abash1.microsoft.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>From: 	Sandy Sandfort
>
>As per Duncan's lead, I say the government should stop spreading
>terrorist bomb making information via police, military and 
>intelligence training.
.............................................

Speaking of "security" and all the excitement about getting people's IDs
(two of them), inspecting everyone's packages when they board planes,
etc. --

It has been mentioned in the news that there was a warning call to 911
about 30 minutes or so before the blast.   But "it didn't get to" the
right people until it was too late for them to do much about it.  

There have been many other instances where the police or other security
personnel have been been sent notice that there was a bomb or other such
device to be on the alert for, but the warnings went unheeded.   Or as
in this case, the message "didn't get to" anyone in time.

So I was thinking that it makes a joke of the need for telephone
wiretapping to catch certain criminals and their dastardly plots, when
warnings go unheeded or the security departments themselves are totally
unprepared to respond appropriately in an emergency (also in the case of
a lone pipe-bomber, there wouldn't be any conspirators making calls to
coordinate the event).

Furthermore, checking on the security guard's ID didn't prevent the bomb
from going off and killing a couple of people.   And knowing that no
one's baggage in a plane contains explosives doesn't prevent some
imaginative loon from using other ways to create havoc & destruction -
from *outside* the plane or the building in which all those clean,
examined people are sitting.

Just more ironic notes on the issue of the needs of law enforcement and
our "national security".

   ..
>Blanc
>
>