Some friends have asked me to step outside my normal role as a technology evangelist today, to point out in public that a political panic reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attack could do a great deal more damage than the attack itself.

Today will not have been a victory for terrorism unless we make it one. If we reward in any way the Palestinians who are now celebrating this hideous crime in the streets of the West Bank, that wil have been a victory for terrorism. If we accept "anti-terrorism" measures that do further damage to our Constitutional freedoms, that will have been a victory for terrorism. But if we learn the right lessons, if we make policies that preserve freedom and offer terrorists no result but a rapid and futile death, that will have been a victory for the rest of us.

We have learned today that airport security is not the answer. At least four separate terror teams were able to sail right past all the elaborate obstacles -- the demand for IDs, the metal detectors, the video cameras, the X-ray machines, the gunpowder sniffers, the gate agents and security people trained to spot terrorists by profile. There have been no reports that any other terror units were successfully prevented from achieving their objectives by these measures. In fact, the early evidence is that all these police-state-like impositions on freedom were exactly useless -- and in the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center lies the proof of their failure.

We have learned today that increased surveillance is not the answer. The FBI's "Carnivore" tap on the U.S.'s Internet service providers didn't spot or prevent this disaster; nor did the NSA's illegal Echelon wiretaps on international telecommunications. Video monitoring of public areas could have accomplished exactly nothing against terrorists taking even elementary concealment measures. If we could somehow extend airport-level security to the entire U.S., it would be just as useless against any determined and even marginally competent enemy.

We have learned today that trying to keep civilian weapons out of airplanes and other areas vulnerable to terrorist attack is not the answer either -- indeed, it is arguable that the lawmakers who disarmed all the non-terrorists on those four airplanes, leaving them no chance to stop the hijackers, bear part of the moral responsibility for this catastrophe.

I expect that in the next few months, far too many politicians and pundits will press for draconian "anti-terrorist" laws and regulations. Those who do so will be, whether intentionally or not, cooperating with the terrorists in their attempt to destroy our way of life -- and we should all remember that fact come election time.

As an Internet technologist, I have learned that distributed problems require distributed solutions -- that centralization of power, the first resort of politicians who feed on crisis, is actually worse than useless, because centralizers regard the more effective coping strategies as threats and act to thwart them.

Perhaps it is too much to hope that we will respond to this shattering tragedy as well as the Israelis, who have a long history of preventing similar atrocities by encouraging their civilians to carry concealed weapons and to shoot back at criminals and terrorists. But it is in that policy of a distributed response to a distributed threat, with every single citizen taking personal responsibility for the defense of life and freedom, that our best hope for preventing recurrences of today's mass murders almost certainly lies.

If we learn that lesson, perhaps today's deaths will not have been in vain.

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And arming civilians in Israel doesn't seem to have reduced their vulnerability to terorrism at all. It just helps to justify making everyone a legitimate target.

I'm not saying I've got any answers either. I'm just a bit distraught.

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Lesson one is that terrorists are grown. They arise, usually, as a response to some form of repression/oppression. We can argue about the reality of the oppression, but it is the terrorists' perceptions that matter. Attack the reality or the perception of oppression and you will be eliminating the next generation of terrorists. It also happens that fighting and eliminating oppression is the right thing to do.

Terrorism is a tool used by the weak against the powerful. Once unleashed it easily turns into a positive feedback loop of violence escalting to further violence. The people responsible for this particular crime need to be brought to justice - not vengeance.

My thoughts are with the families and survivors. I hope that wisdom prevails, and policy is formed on the basis of stopping more events like today's rather than reacting and escalating.

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And yeah, I'm distraught too. My cousin who works at the Pentagon still hasn't been heard from.

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While I personally believe that Eric is correct to say that an armed society is a more free society, I don't think this issue really applies here. Certainly armed citizens might have prevented this particular incident, but I think the fundamental assumptions of the essay don't hold up.

First, arming a population to defend itself is not the same thing as decentralizing all forms of weaponry into the hands of individuals. Technology continually increases the number of people that can be threatened by one insane (or incompetent) person who wields that technology. In fact, terrorism relies on this very fact. Would arming every citizen with a truck bomb help prevent truck bombings? Would arming every citizen with a handgun prevent truck bombings? How about nuclear weapons? This to me is the story of Babel.

Second, the essay sets up a few strawman arguments to "prove" that this incident could not have possibly been prevented by any centralized effort. That point is far from being proven. We have known for at least a decade about the existence of thriving camps and terrorist cells which have been working towards the exclusive goal of terrorizing America. This event occurs at the end of a ten-year period where these camps were permitted to thrive with very little centralized effort to hamper their operations. One can speculate that the necessary recruitments, training, planning, and funding could have taken place even in a less permisive environment; but I doubt this will prove to be the case.

Third, this essay seems to imply that the centralized and decentralized are binary either-or instead of complimentary approaches. Both are normally necessary.

And finally, I (personally) think the rhetoric so far has been consistent with the idea that our primary reason for taking action is to prevent America from becoming a police state. Between the two poles of either (A) turning America into a defensively closed police state or (B) turning certain terrorist-friendly areas of the world into police states, I think it is fairly clear which direction on the continuum we are swinging. Yes vigilance is prudent, and we should be wary of attempts to swing toward pole A. But I am not too worried.

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You're not the only one to call ESR's logic into question. Eric Norlin went on at some length (and rather passionately) about the matter here.

I posted ESR's piece because I didn't see anybody else picking it up (maybe they have by now, I don't know), and because he's a good friend.

I should add that although he and I share certain Libertarian ideals, we differ about The Gun Thing, althrough I respect his views and believe they deserve to be heard.

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