Well, then we have fundamentally different views. Obviously from different
points of reference too. Yes, I have lived in one of "those" countries and I
can assure you that the questioning you went through was a minor hassle.
This topic has gone a little too far off-topic for my taste.

Over.

Marco

"Michael" wrote in message
om...
"Marco Leon" mleon(at)optonline.net wrote
Good points. Where would you have run-off to?

Anywhere. After all, I was under an assumed name, right?

You can bet that if you did do
that, it would have stepped up the investigation.

I'm sure it would have. But I would be gone (maybe back to my home
country) while the others left behind carried on the plot.

This accomplishes the same
thing as the questioning itself.

Nope. Unless they catch me, it loses their only lead. I KNOW it's
their only lead, because there is no network, no cell that I am a
member of. But THEY don't know that. As far as they know, I'm their
only lead to a local cell.

Would they have to chase you? Yes. But they
know what you look like

Yeah - a bald dark skinned man with a beard and glasses. How long
does it take to shave and put on a toupee, and buy contacts?

know the car you drive

Which would be traded in a heartbeat.

know your credit card numbers, etc.

Again - if I'm a terrorist, I've stolen an identity. If I'm who I
claim to be, then it's obvious I'm not a terrorist.

Listen, I understand that I may be wrong
and I won't bet my life that I'm right

You are betting your life that you're right. These are the people who
are supposedly defending you from terror.

but from conversations with good
friends in that field and others who work for the Dept of Homeland
Security,
I personally would not underestimate their procedures.

I think that would be difficult to do.

Especially after they
went through a major overhaul of these procedures post 9/11.

The changes after 9/11 are all window dressing. Nothing substantive
happened. That's the point. We're no safer now than we were then,
but we're a lot less free.

Bottom line is that this is a weeding-out process that worked.

No, the bottom line is that this is a process that could ONLY work if
I were not a terrorist. If I were, the process was guaranteed to
fail. It's not a process designed to actually improve security, but
to give the illusion of it.

You had a
minimal "hassle" and they redirected their efforts. I say "minimal"
because
I compare your discussion with other countries' versions of
"discussions."

Do you actually know anything about those other countries? Have you
ever lived in one? Do you remember when everyone was looking for
communists rather than terrorists? I lived in the Soviet Union then.
It really wasn't a lot different from what the US has become. It's
not that the KGB was all-powerful and massive. It wasn't really all
that different from our own FBI and CIA. But what the KGB did have
was an army of unpaid volunteer snitches - something free countries
don't have. We have them now.

Michael



Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY **
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.usenet.com