howdy

The "pursuit" of terrorist has nothing to do with "our" rights.

By the way, can you paranoids give a list of rights you've lost and explain the change in your life since the loss of those rights.

Wrong.

There was a recent thread on that very subject. The general consensus was that our constitutional right to privacy and habeas corpus is being eroded and circumvented.

OK, so, it is your contention that no laws concerning security measures should be instituted to protect citizens from attack by terrorist?

You're perfectly happy with the laws that existed before 911?

Direct me to the thread if you don't mind.

What about your life need remain so secret that authorities can not peek at it and consider you a threat or not?

After all, the financial SS police force has always had the power to pick your world apart if they so desired. The safety of your neighbors should have a higher priority on it than Uncle Sam's ability to dissect you over monies owed.

1. I never said that. How about you state your own contentions instead of trying to make mine for me, mmmkay?

2. Yes. It was not the lack of govt. authority or lack of protective legislation. It was the incompetence of the administration and the lack of enforcement of existing laws. I'll never understand how people come to the conclusion that new laws will solve problems when current laws aren't enforced or utilized properly.

3. Here's the thread:
http://www.conflictingviews.com/t2580/

4. EVERYTHING (other than suspicious activities). The US need not "peek at" (read: violate) anyone until suspicious activity is observed. The sad thing is, even when suspicious activity is blatant, the authorities are unable to follow existing procedures to detain and investigate these individuals.

5. Social Security and the Federal Income Tax are the worst things to ever happen to the US. If you're justifying government domestic spying by saying "At least it's not as bad as the IRS" then you truly should refrain from inhaling anymore gasoline fumes.

I don't believe it was incompetence either. Governments are not made up of mystical seers. No one of sound mind would have imagined that morons would ever hijack airbuses to crash into buildings.

That's not true.

There were also several contingencies in place specifically for that type of attack, they just didn't manage to implement them.

Wrong.

There was a recent thread on that very subject. The general consensus was that our constitutional right to privacy and habeas corpus is being eroded and circumvented.

Manage? What reasonable plan could be devised? Anti air craft to shoot down planes full of U.S. citizens?

You hold people (administrations) to standards that no other entity on earth could live up to.

Notice the sights on the wtc building were the sights of a stinger or a laws rocket. Not the cockpit window of an aircraft.

Got link?

Here's the thread:
http://www.conflictingviews.com/t2580/

1. There should have been a USAF fighter jet on the wing of that highjacked aircraft within minutes of NORAD being notified. Which IS entirely possible. And as soon as it came within a dangerous proximity to an area with that dense of population, it should have and could have been taken out.

2. BILLIONS of dollars. So yes, I expect them to do a damn good job, but they ***ed up big time.

3. Doesn't change the fact that the building was designed to withstand aircraft impacts and there were contingencies for high-jacked aircraft being flown into buildings.

1. At what point in the history of the U.S. should this plan have been instated? Having F-16's in the right place at the right time is easier said than done. No matter who's saying it.

If a pilot loses their transponder the controllers console immediately alerts him to this fact since he no longer has the transponder code and altitude. This causes the controllers a great deal of trouble and very shortly the pilot also has trouble. The pilot is instructed to stay below 3,500 feet and return to the airport. The reason for the concern is the pilot is a hazard to navigation. Now imagine the situation in the Air Traffic Control Center.

The northeast corner of the United States is the busiest airspace on the planet. Each controller has a wedged shaped sector that he is responsible for. His airspace is also bounded by altitude limits. Commercial flights are always under positive control, they must constantly be in communication with the controllers in order to maintain legal separation. If one of these heavies loses its transponder, it causes instant problems for more than one controller since altitude information is lost.

The controllers still have a skin paint, or passive echo from the airframe, but the blip now shows up on all consoles for that sector, not just the original one that was handling the altitude range of the flight. If that same flight loses communication with the controllers as well, the controller workload takes another giant step upward. Keep in mind that this is in an area that is normally stretched to the breaking point with controller overload. This flight is now a hazard to air navigation, and the controllers primary function of separating the planes is in jeopardy.

The procedure for lost communication emergencies is simple: follow your last clearance. If the flight under discussion follows its last clearance, the controllers can predict where it will go and can still keep other flights out of harms way. If in addition to losing communication and transponder the flight starts to deviate from its last clearance, the whole system is in an emergency condition. Alarms all over the country would be going off. One interesting piece of information is the recording of controller and pilot conversations. These tapes are a matter of public record and are written over after a few days unless something interesting happens. These tapes would show the response of the system. Why did the FBI confiscate all of these tapes between the controllers and these four flights?

The air traffic control system would be in panic mode within two to three minutes of the initial events. We know that Otis Air Force Base is only about seven minutes from Manhattan by F-15. Also, there is an Air Defense Intercept Zone just off shore for the entire Atlantic Coast. This zone is constantly being patrolled. In general fast movers would not need to be scrambled. They can be diverted from routine patrol and training flights for the intercept.

The odds are that many flights would be on patrol just off shore. It would be most improbable that even one commercial flight could go more than ten minutes without being intercepted. The intercepting plane would slowly close from the left and take station slightly above and ahead of the errant heavy. At this point he would rock his wings and expect the other plane to do the same as a form of non-verbal communication. After this he would perform a gentle turn to the left and the intercepted plane is required to follow. If this does not occur, there are many actions short of firing the fighter can take to prevent the commercial jet from harming either itself, any other plane, or any ground structure.

2. Billions are spent all the time. The reality is that "now" that we are aware of the lengths AQ is willing to go to kill innocents, it is a more realistic goal to be prepared to the extents that you imagine. The Clintoon administration couldn't even stop a truck bomb. A much more predictable situation.

3. A design that obviously did not work. You do understand that contingencies are plans that have no history that guarntees the success of them working? Of course, hind sight based on speculation makes experts.

Quote:
If a pilot loses their transponder the controllers console immediately alerts him to this fact..............................

The northeast corner of the United States is the busiest airspace on the planet....................................

The controllers still have a skin paint, or passive echo from the airframe, but the blip now shows up on all consoles for that sector, not just the original one that was handling the altitude range of the flight......................

The procedure for lost communication emergencies is simple:..............

The air traffic control system would be in panic mode within two to three minutes of the initial events..................................

The odds are that many flights would be on patrol just off shore...........

The point that you missed was that many people have considered the act of highjacking and crashing planes into buildings. If the existing contingencies had been followed even remotely closely, this tragedy would not have happened. The only explanation is that this happened due to incompetence or deliberate neglection of protocol.

Offering up an untested scenario and procedure hardly provides proof of incompetence or conspiracy of an administration. It does however, prove that contingencies are just that.

Imagination of conspiracy theorist seems to be about as realistic as the imaginings of people building contingencies against hijacked planes ramming loaded passenger planes into loaded commercial bldgs. Neither work well.

Failure to do your job = incompetence. There's no way around it. Sure, they had a REALLY hard job to do. They also had BILLIONS of dollars to do it.
My job is difficult, but if I fail, I lose my job. The same thing should have happened here.
The association of amateur schizophrenics with trained govt. officials who failed at their duty hardly makes for good argument.

The U.S. education system is a prime example of money being no guarantee.

Should President Lincoln have lost his job because the south attacked?

Should President Roosevelt have lost his job over Pearl Harbor?

Should Carter have lost his job when Americans were taken hostage?

Reagan lost his job over Beirut?

You are human, you will fail on your job on occasion. If not, you do nothing.
But, likely, you do and do it well, building a level of tolerance from your supervisors.

A president's job has numerous events that are sometimes catastrophic which he has little control over. Especially well thought out sneak attacks. Holding any president to absurd standards is simply a tactic, generally that of opposing political positions and the media. Who will use the most minute detail to discredit someone.

1. And your line of reasoning is a prime example of why these failures are allowed to happen. Everyone says, well other people are doing a piss poor job and wasting money, so we should be able to get away with it too. Every govt. program needs to be accountable. If it doesn't perform to it's expectations and wastes money without results, it needs to be replaced with something that ACTUALLY WORKS instead of tolerating the same failure.

Not even close dude. Should I eat an apple because oranges taste good?

Pearl Harbor was allowed to happen so that the American population would support entering WWII. Sound familiar? So, yes.

Carter should have lost his job for more reasons than that. That asshat had no business running a McDonalds, much less our country.

That also was not an attack on American soil. Why the hell were we over there to begin with?


2. I have yet to fail at my job. I do it consistently and efficiently. I can understand tolerating a very small level of failure, but this administration has long since passed any tolerable level.

3. I'm not placing sole blame on the President. The heads of the intelligence agencies are more responsible than he is. Those who do not fulfill their responsibilities should be removed from office. This applies to every level of govt.

Failure should not be tolerated.

Fatal, thank you for presenting the compass. It was fun to be judged by it, however it ranked me mid hight and slightly to the right of center. It also ranked GW Bush as further up and further to right than myself. I consider GW to be borderline liberal. I respect him for his ability to make a decision and stick with it based on his belief that it is the right decision. I am angered by his inaction on other issues such as immigration.

I would love for you to create a thread to discuss your statement..........
The greatest threat to America is not from terrorists but the destruction of civil liberties in the relentless pursuit of them...
It is basically hog wash.

Why should we fear some dissgruntled zealots an ocean away more than the men who control the mightiest nation in the world? More Americans have died from from peanuts than from terrorists, and yet we are supposed to be afraid of them, i'm not sure if you are aware but if terrorists can encite terror then they've just accomplished their goal. What are terrorists without terror? If you have become aware of your history you'll see some clear patterns, it is when you are scared that you are taken advantage of. I for one won't be scared into giving up my civil liberties guranteed by the constitution of the United States of America. It is when you and I as citizens are scared of a foreign power that your rights are taken from you, thats what Hitler and Stalin did...and it shall not happen here!

Why should we fear some dissgruntled zealots an ocean away more than the men who control the mightiest nation in the world? More Americans have died from from peanuts than from terrorists, and yet we are supposed to be afraid of them, i'm not sure if you are aware but if terrorists can encite terror then they've just accomplished their goal. What are terrorists without terror? If you have become aware of your history you'll see some clear patterns, it is when you are scared that you are taken advantage of. I for one won't be scared into giving up my civil liberties guranteed by the constitution of the United States of America. It is when you and I as citizens are scared of a foreign power that your rights are taken from you, thats what Hitler and Stalin did...and it shall not happen here!

Show me the mass peanut massacre that killed 3,000 Americans in one blow. I'm pretty sure that no matter how terrified we are, these guys are going to want to kill us.

Why should we fear some dissgruntled zealots an ocean away more than the men who control the mightiest nation in the world? More Americans have died from from peanuts than from terrorists, and yet we are supposed to be afraid of them, i'm not sure if you are aware but if terrorists can encite terror then they've just accomplished their goal. What are terrorists without terror? If you have become aware of your history you'll see some clear patterns, it is when you are scared that you are taken advantage of. I for one won't be scared into giving up my civil liberties guranteed by the constitution of the United States of America. It is when you and I as citizens are scared of a foreign power that your rights are taken from you, thats what Hitler and Stalin did...and it shall not happen here!