How Terrorism Won

I want to like NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly because he’s an intelligent, no-nonsense guy who gets shit done. But he, like so very much of America, is merely a slave to fear. We want so badly to prevent the next attack that we—well, not me—are willing to sacrifice much for even just the hope of safety. Privacy, don’t let the door hit ya on the way out. It’s not even that a proliferation of public cameras is all that concerning (though it is), it is that it represents only a small part of a much bigger attack on American civil liberties—an attack that’s coming from within and with “good intentions.”

“The privacy issue has really been taken off the table,” he said. “I don’t think people are concerned about it. I think people accept it in a post-9/11 world.” – Ray Kelly

Contrast that with Benjamin Franklin’s timeless words:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.