Betting on assassinations and terror attacks

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Pentagon Prepares a Futures Market on Terror Attacks

By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, July 28 — The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has a new experiment. It is an online futures trading market, disclosed today by critics, in which anonymous speculators would bet on forecasting terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups.
Traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The Pentagon called its latest idea a new way of predicting events and part of its search for the "broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks." Two Democratic senators who reported the plan called it morally repugnant and grotesque. The senators said the program fell under the control of Adm. John M. Poindexter, President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser.
One of the two senators, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, said the idea seemed so preposterous that he had trouble persuading people it was not a hoax. "Can you imagine," Mr. Dorgan asked, "if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in — and is sponsored by the government itself — people could go in and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?"
Has Rumsfeld gone completerly crazy? What your reaction to this I would call insanity?
Complete article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/29/politics/29TERR.html?th

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I fail to see what is wrong in tapping any resource we can that might help predict--and thereby prevent--future acts of terrorism.

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I saw this on the AP this morning. Just in-fecking-credible. These guys are nut cases.

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Scrat
My friend unfortunately you fail to see anything that this administration does as wrongheaded. Apparently members of congress did. Rumsfeld [little Caesar] has allowed the power he wields to infect him mentally. His next assignment should be in an asylum, as an inmate.

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au1929 wrote:

Scrat
My friend unfortunately you fail to see anything that this administration does as wrongheaded. Apparently members of congress did. Rumsfeld [little Caesar] has allowed the power he wields to infect him mentally. His next assignment should be in an asylum, as an inmate.

Your comments are unsupportable on their face. You attack rather than discuss. I have plenty of complaints about the current administration, and have shared many here. That you may have missed them or prefer to ignore them does not change that fact. The reality is that you are the one with an unthinking, knee-jerk reaction to this administration. You HATE Bush and his administration and fail--by intent--to see value in anything they do. That others disagree with you does not mean that their disagreement is equally unthinking.

This program is a novel idea at a time when perhaps novel ideas are needed. I think I understand it and believe it could work, based largely on the fact that it would effectively pay people on the Arab street for intelligence on planned terrorist actions.

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Scrat
Did you bother reading the rest of the article? This Idea will go the way of the TIP's program, Duct tape instruction and some of the other brilliant ideas this Frankenstien administration has come up with.

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au1929 wrote:

Scrat
Did you bother reading the rest of the article? This Idea will go the way of the TIP's program, Duct tape instruction and some of the other brilliant ideas this Frankenstien administration has come up with.

au - Are you suggesting that every idea that withers on the vine was therefor a bad idea? (Ever hear of BetaMax?) Whether or not I understand who is for or against this idea has no bearing on my understanding of the idea and the value I think it could have.

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Re: Betting on assassinations and terror attacks

au1929 wrote:

...
One of the two senators, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, said the idea seemed so preposterous that he had trouble persuading people it was not a hoax.

That's exactly what I was thinking till I saw your link & Setanta's assertion he read it as well.

Out-frigging-rageous.

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I'm still hoping it will be exposed as a hoax?

But it doesn't seem likely that it is. It actually is an idea that one of these yo-yo's thought up.

I wonder if he/she worked in the Office of Exploding Cigars?

Incredible!

And to think -- they actually will find Americans dumb enough to endorse this crap.

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Some (a few) earlier opinions can be found here:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9976

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According to the latest AP report, Senator John Warner called the clown-in-chief of this program at the Pentagon, and " . . . we agreed that it should be called off." Welcome to the monkey house . . .

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The idea has been scrapped. I'm not sure whether because of congressional outrage or public ridicule.

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These were the same people who planned the our strategy for pacification and nation building in Iraq. Is there any wonder it's going so well, Embarrassed

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I think it's time to go back and review the futures trading by parties unknown on the Chicago Board just before 9/11, trading which indicated money was being pulled out of airlines futures in large quantities. Forgotten the details. Worth revisiting.

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Was that alleged activity the sort of thing that this idea was supposed to tap into?

Or was it an attempt to utilise the accumulated information systems of the money market - however good or bad those are?

What was to stop cashed up terrorist groups from making money from it? Or, did they think they were going to move fast enough to prevent a planned attack by rushing security to anywhere that the money went?

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Scrat

Pentagon cancels terrorism betting plan

Posted: Tuesday, July 29, 3:08pm EDT

The Pentagon on Tuesday abandoned a plan to establish a futures market that would have allowed traders to profit by correctly predicting assassinations and terrorist strikes in the Middle East.
Facing outraged Democratic senators, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said he learned of the program in the newspaper while heading to a Senate Foreign Relations hearing on Iraq.

"I share your shock at this kind of program," he said. "We'll find out about it, but it is being terminated."

Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R) of Va. said in an interview that he received assurance from the head of the Pentagon agency overseeing the program that it would "stop all engines on this matter today."

Still think it was a good idea??

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Wolfowitz ran into incredulity and ridicule in Congress today. Very enjoyable encounter for many of us, if not for the Wolf.

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au1929 wrote:

Scrat

Pentagon cancels terrorism betting plan

Posted: Tuesday, July 29, 3:08pm EDT

The Pentagon on Tuesday abandoned a plan to establish a futures market that would have allowed traders to profit by correctly predicting assassinations and terrorist strikes in the Middle East.
Facing outraged Democratic senators, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said he learned of the program in the newspaper while heading to a Senate Foreign Relations hearing on Iraq.

"I share your shock at this kind of program," he said. "We'll find out about it, but it is being terminated."

Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R) of Va. said in an interview that he received assurance from the head of the Pentagon agency overseeing the program that it would "stop all engines on this matter today."

Still think it was a good idea??

Yes, I still think the idea had merit.

Ever support an idea that others found lacking? Or do you only hold opinions when the majority agrees with you?

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Merit for whom?

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Tartarin wrote:

Merit for whom?

Merit as an idea.

I completely understand why this idea would raise hackles and eyebrows, but that doesn't mean it isn't something that might have been a useful tool in the war against terror. In essence such a system would have amounted to a conduit for information from those on the street. The market model would have provided the incentive for providing tips.

My one concern with the concept regards my suspicion that it might create an incentive for creating mayhem. If Joe Mufti hatches a plan to do X and simultaneously is the first person to leak it in this hypothetical futures market, he might be able to successfully cash in on his own plot if he was able to distance himself sufficiently from those who carried it out.

Again, not an idea without flaws and reasons for concern, but not one completely without merit. I understand and respect the opinions of those here who are so against the idea. I'm neither surprised nor concerned that the idea got the axe, but that fact does not mean it had no merits. (I do not support the Kyoto treaty and am glad that we are not signing it, but that doesn't mean I think it had no merit. I simply consider it too flawed to support.)

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Betting on assassinations and terror attacks

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