London incidents

Tue Jul 12 16:56:42 UTC 2005

--- "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick at ianai.net> wrote:
> 
> No, it's damned if you take stupid action, damned if you do not do  
> something you should.
> 
> People in charge of our security should not be allowed to take  
> whatever action comes to mind in the name of security.  

Then who should, and with data from who's mind?  I suppose they (the 
ones in charge) could spend their time polling the audience, but that
has it's price and uncertainty too.

>Intelligent, useful, competent decisions should be made.  If they cannot
> make them, we should find someone who can.

But they did make a decision, it is only some (majority or not, but clearly
not all) that are still not convinced of the competency of their decision.
(note: some will never be convinced, some will always be convinced).

> Billions of dollars, millions of person-hours, and more frustration  
> than I can quantify is not a good price to pay for the infinitesimal  
> increase in security (if any) we have received through decisions like  
> this one.

How can you accurately know this?  I think you are just presuming, but 
you (like I) will never really truly know.  We don't like spending that
money, but we have no proof that not spending it is better.  We can all
agree that it could probably be spent wiser, but this is the US Government.

> > I think the world has shown that cellphones have been used over and  
> > over
> > to detonate explosive devices.  Why wait for it to be proved again
> > before doing something?  AFAIK "Emergency Only" mode allows for 911
> > calls, just not inbound/outbound calls.  Besides, the US (at least) is
> > full of a lot of people who need to hang up the phone and start  
> > driving
> > good again.
> 
> Your logic is ... illogical.  If you cannot see why, I will not be  
> able to explain it to you.  (But you probably feel safer knowing I  
> can't pack a Zippo in my checked in baggage.)

No, your logic is ... illogical.., and I will not show you where. ;-)

> As for the "Emergency Only" mode, the original poster said _power was  
> cut_ to the repeaters.  Could you explain to me how this allows for  
> 911 calls please?

The original poster quoted a news report, how may times have you seen
technically accurate news reports?  I don't know the source of the 
report but I do know that some people think the the whole internet is
down when only it is their connection.  In this case (someone saying that 
the port authority had shutdown cellphone access) there are so many 
possible interpretations that it is impossible to really know without 
firsthand knowledge.  Speculation as to "how", is just as bad as speculation
as to "why" (which is why I jumped into this cat fight).

> > -Jim P. (who is tired of being caught in traffic behind weaving,
> > slowing/speeding, hand-waving and head-shaking, cellphone "drivers")
> 
> Not really relevant to the discussion at hand.

Mom?  :-)   <--- notice the smiley

-Jim P.