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Terrorism in the 21st Century
Domestic Security

Item 7  05-NOV-2001 18:59 Richard Farson

Welcome to the conference on providing domestic security against terrorism.  In this discussion, we can deal with suggestions for enhancing security, exploration of fundamental issues of planning for domestic security, and countering with any unintended consequences of security systems.

7:2) 05-NOV-2001 21:53 Richard Farson

Ray Alden has suggested that I copy some statement from our previous discussion for the opening comment, just to get us started on the right track.

Malcolm Gladwell, in last week's “New Yorker”, described how our efforts to advance airline security have led to a parallel advance in the techniques of the hijackers and terrorists.  The result is that there has been an escalation and increase in the devastation and loss of life.  So on balance, we have not improved security, we have just entered a security game with the terrorists which has been costly and largely ineffective.  The effort is characterized, of course, by our enacting security measures to deal with the past problems, and we are continually surprised by the unimaginable, as we were on Sept 11.

7:3) 05-NOV-2001 21:54 Richard Farson

I just went to pick up my eight-year-old granddaughter at Bird Rock Elementary School here in La Jolla.  They have recently, in response to Columbine, put up high black iron bar fences around the school, fences even within fences.  I find that mentality so outrageous, so dehumanizing, and so irrational, that I wonder if we will ever find a sensible course in national security.  The odds against such a disaster at Bird Rock Elementary are about 4 million to one, and even then, the danger it was responding to came from within.  We need leaders who are not demagogues, who can talk straight with us about such matters, but where will we find them?

7:4) 06-NOV-2001 00:19 Carlos Campbell

Dick - it seems to me that public officials feel that they must do something to reduce hysteria.  The culture of bureaucracy is difficult to change.  Part of what happens is just doing something like scratching your head when it doesn't really itch.  Remember the air raid drills during World War Two?  I remember the Air Raid Wardens with the white helmets, sirens, crawling under a desk at school, automobile headlights painted black on top, and searchlights beaming into the sky.  Just precautions!  The German aircraft never got to the U.S., and when the German submarines were off our coast, the public was not informed.  In fighting domestic terrorism, we are in going to look for shadows in dark corners.  We are back to Plato's cave.

In reality, there is no way a person willing to sacrifice their life can be stopped if they want to inflict harm on people.  The best we can do is to make it more difficult, limit targets and reduce or control threshold access.

The 7,000 page terrorist encyclopedia details all sorts of targets such as water, produce, meat, and so forth.  We may have bought into the psychological trap of over reacting.

7:5) 06-NOV-2001 08:11 Richard Farson

I think you're right about overreacting, Carlos.  I think that the public officials are just confused about how much to tell.  But the media tend to inflate and keep the story going.  Their treatment of the episode yesterday about the man from Nepal is a case in point.  Somehow, when Americans are armed to the teeth, as we are, to find a weapon in a suitcase should not be all that surprising.  But it sounded awful--nine knives, a stun gun (in the box, without a battery) and a can of tear gas/pepper spray.  Yet, I don't believe that they stopped a terrorist attack yesterday, and neither do the authorities.  I worry more that many of us who mistakenly carry on our penknives will be jailed on a felony charge.  The chances of that are increasing.  But at least the media did do their homework and found an address for him in a large apartment building that was also an address of a suspect.  Coincidentally, I guess, because they now say there is no connection to the terrorists.

I watched one of the experts being interviewed on CNN yesterday about that episode, saying emphatically that she would not fly again.  And attorney Alan Dershowitz, on the same program, was talking about how dangerous flying is today because of the prospect of terrorist acts.  But what are the odds of being on a hijacked airplane?  If there are 20,000 flights a day, and let's say one hijacking a year, that would mean that the odds are about one in seven million.  Even if there were a hijacking every month, the chances would only be one in 600,000.  Not bad odds. But I suppose if a rational analysis of odds were a part of the American way, nobody would play the lotteries.

7:6) 06-NOV-2001 16:29 Donald Straus

This entry belongs in all four divisions of this Forum!

This morning's NY Times has two op-ed stories that are, for me, new ideas for our consideration.

ON THE HOME FRONT, A WINNABLE WAR, by Bruce Ackerman, a Yale Professor, suggests that "victory abroad may be too much to hope for", but "our domestic problems are manageable, if not completely solvable".  He then goes on to point out that similar problems are being solved at home by the English (Londoners have learned to live with acts of terrorism by the Irish) and many other European countries.

Another OP ED by Thomas Friedman outlines a more complex idea on how the bombing objectives in Afghanistan should be very limited, ending with this thought: "The Bush team should tell our Arab partners: Look, we don't need your base or armies.  We just need you to open your societies.  We'll take care of bin Laden, but you have to take care of bin Ladenism".

Both articles clearly advise limiting, if not actually stopping, the heavy bombing but in doing so offer some new ideas that are outside of the traditional "box" of conventional wisdom.

7:7) 06-NOV-2001 18:08 Richard Farson

Don, I didn't get from Friedman's column today that he was offering ideas about how the bombing objectives should be very limited.  In previous columns, he has been a real hawk on going after the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  But the facts he reported--for example, the fact that Egypt's top newspaper editor said that the USA was dropping our aid packages in known minefields, and that the packages themselves contained genetically treated foods designed to affect (ruin?) the health of the Afghan people.  Pretty tough propaganda to counter.

And Ackerman's column, while I agree with him completely about the impossibility of winning a war against terrorism, even if we do win it against bin Laden, seemed to be whistling in the dark about winning the homeland security war, comparing it to how London copes with car bombings and the like.  We here have witnessed a serious and unprecedented escalation in the terrorism department, suicide hijackings, biological warfare and thousands dead.  He seemed to ignore that escalation.  I think we may learn to cope, and may find ways to reduce the terrorists interest in creating devastation, but I doubt that it will be quite the manageable London experience.  Although, even here I do agree with him that we may find a way to live with domestic terrorism, unless it holds to the 9/11 model.

7:8) 08-NOV-2001 12:37 Raymond Alden

What would happen, do you suppose, if we were to implement two measures in place of the routine airport screening that is now both common and ineffective:

1) A voluntary personal ID (retinal scan perhaps) that is arduous to obtain and therefore 99% counterfeit-proof, but required to get easy walk-on access to most anywhere; and,

2) Tightly secured crew enclosures on commercial planes; and random (but tight) examination of passengers without the highly secure personal ID.

We have talked many times about the trade-off between personal freedom and security.  But suppose that trade were voluntary -- some theoretical loss in exchange for convenience?

The terrorist bent upon causing great damage to many people is not going to risk his life in trivial exercises, like hijacking a plane with 25 seats and flying it into the tallest building in Fresno.  (Just kidding if you’re from Fresno.)

7:9) 08-NOV-2001 16:00 Richard Farson

Making ID voluntary to speed security exams.  Interesting.  As far as I know, original.  I like it.  How expensive is it?  Would it be government subsidized?  Whatever we can do to eliminate the current long lines (which I think will be longer with new measures proposed) will greatly help the airline industry.  While people may not disapprove of the security measures, they will eventually abandon flying for other transportation, or for working online or on the phone.  All for no good reason, because the odds are very much with the flier, even with the prospect of more terrorism.

7:10) 09-NOV-2001 14:51 Raymond Alden

The idea is applicable to other venues than airports.  Those citizens whose employment requires much travel away from their home neighborhoods would have considerable incentive to acquire, and perhaps to pay for, a form of ID that would admit them almost anywhere, quickly.  They constitute such a small percentage of the total population that I think this would not be seen as the equivalent of compulsory ID cards for everyone.

Since this group would also make up a significant portion of airline passengers, it should lessen the cost of security at airports.  Let's then go beyond that and consider where it might lessen other costs.  Bank transactions when not at one's home bank?  Hospital emergency rooms?  ATM machines?

7:11) 10-NOV-2001 21:15 Douglass Carmichael

I remember when, in the 70's, I was doing consulting at the World Bank on of all things "participatory work”, and while there were guards, I could just walk in, go to any office or attend any seminar.  Then the gates came slowly, and I asked - is it not obvious that this change is a result of the very "development" the Bank finances?  Those gates were feeble in comparison to the ones today.

There is no possibility of real security when assets are led - through law and governance - into the hands of a few while rents go up, and jobs go down.

Just to jump to a conclusion: no one attacks Finland.  What if we broke up the country into, say, states (except Texas, where it should be counties)?

7:12) 11-NOV-2001 18:38 Raymond Alden

Since my reading of the news is often a few weeks behind the events, I did not know when posting 7:10 above how close we may be do doing just what I suggested -- i.e. voluntary personal ID of an extremely secure sort.  It seems to be coming.

7:13) 13-NOV-2001 17:57 Mary Boone

Ray, I really like your idea.  I would definitely opt for it.  They already have that Fast Track system at JFK for people who want to move through passport control quickly, and I've got to imagine it's rather similar to what you're proposing.

I'm totally amazed that many people I speak with are so nervous about flying.  I've been traveling extensively for the past three weeks or so, and the only thing I'm nervous about is the fact that airports like Dallas are eerily empty and I'm worried about all the looks I see on the faces of the people who are running the businesses in those airports.

7:14) 13-NOV-2001 21:06 Richard Farson

The crash yesterday, and the constant and graphic coverage of it by the media, hasn't helped to reassure Americans about the safety of flying.

7:15) 15-NOV-2001 18:30 Richard Farson

William Safire, a conservative columnist for the NY Times who can always be counted on to support President Bush's actions, made an amazing statement in this morning's paper.  Reacting to the move by Bush to bypass Congress in conducting military trials for foreigners in the US, he called that action "dictatorial" and could hardly have used stronger language condemning our president and our AG for their unconstitutional actions.

7:16) 21-NOV-2001 09:01 Nicholas Johnson

Goodness knows we have enough comments in these forums without entering them twice, but a couple items I read yesterday in yesterday's New York Times and this week's New Yorker magazine prompt me to put a brief excerpt from my 1:64) 27-OCT-2001 into this new, "Domestic Security," forum.

"The problem [from this military/national defense perspective, as distinguished from humanitarian concerns] is that the strategies we are using are raising, rather than lowering, the levels of anger among Muslims who weren't crazy about the United States to begin with.  The number who interpret Islam to require -- not just permit, but require -- a defense of their religion that involves an armed attack on the U.S. The number who believe that there are special after-life benefits coming their way if they are killed in the attempt.”

"On September 12^th, we had support in Pakistan.  During the last 24 hours alone [i.e., October 26], the number of Pakistanis who have armed themselves and attempted to go into Afghanistan to join the war against us, the Infidels, increased from 60 to 5000.”

"This change of heart, this increased anger, does not bode well for our efforts to reduce the likelihood that we will come under new, and even more innovative and deadly, terrorist attacks in our homeland from equally increasingly angry potential terrorists newly entering our country or already in our midst.”

"From my perspective, and that of the world's press I am reading, it seems to me that my 'homeland security' is every day somewhat less than it was the day before."

And, as an excerpt from my last column in the 79-column series on K-12 issues, September 25:

"We have more military power than many nations combined.  And yet we're still vulnerable. Not to the wars of the last century.  Those we could still fight and win.  Vulnerable to the wars of this century.  Wars without nations, front lines and tanks. Wars fought with cardboard box openers -- and commercial airliners.

"A terrorist used to be 'someone who has a bomb but doesn't have a plane.'  Now terrorists use planes as bombs.

"It's good to tighten airline security.  But terrorists have many alternatives to bombing buildings with hijacked planes.

"Terrorism is not about 'winning wars.' It's not even about death and destruction, as such.  Terrorism is about fomenting terror.

"Terror comes from the innovative and unexpected attack.  A bridge, nuclear power plant or natural gas pipeline here.  An electric power grid or Internet there.  Atom bombs in backpacks. Poisoned air in a subway one day.  A water supply another.

"Such attacks are easy for perpetrators willing to die.  Especially in countries where individual liberties are highly desired and valued.

"We don't want to turn America into an armed camp.  But even if we imposed martial law we could not eliminate our vulnerability.

"Retaliation may make us feel better. But it will likely increase terrorism."

Since writing those pieces, it seems to me my early concerns continue to be borne out.  Today's New York Times makes reference to what we've been hearing during the past week: "the foreign fighters holed up at Kunduz -- mostly Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis loyal to bin Laden."

One of the pieces I read yesterday (November 20), to which I made reference above, is the column by NY Times' Thomas ("Lexus and the Olive Tree") Friedman, "Today's News Quiz."  (If you don't have the Times in hard copy it's available online at www.nytimes.com; there's a search engine at the top of that page; just put in Thomas Friedman and hit the ">". (If it says you need an account you ought to get one anyway; it's free.)  Recent archived pieces are free; after awhile you have to pay per story. So even if you're not going to read it now, get it now and print it out.)

It's an affront to his writing to try to summarize his thesis, but I'll try anyway.  It is that it is not Islam that is our problem, it is the nations in which it exists.  In relatively democratic nations, few Muslim terrorists are produced.  In oppressive regimes, there are many more.  (And, of course, it doesn't help our cause in any nation to be perceived as the primary force supporting repressive, corrupt regimes -- only because we need their resources, or militarily strategic location, or whatever.)

Although he doesn't use the analogy, bombing is to the reduction of terrorism as roach traps are to the reduction of roaches.  If we're unwilling to stop supporting repressive regimes they are going to keep producing terrorists.  (Just as, if you're unwilling to clean up what's attracting the roaches you're going to continue to breed them.)

The New Yorker piece [Nasra Hassan, "An Arsenal of Believers," The New Yorker, Nov. 19, 2001, p. 36] (which I can't now find on the Web) is a chilling report from inside the minds, and communities, of those well-educated, middle to upper class Muslims willing to engage in what we call "suicide bombing" and they seriously view as a sacred rite. It's relatively short for the New Yorker and another one you really ought to read.

My point, I guess, is that our domestic emphasis on who's screening the baggage, strengthening cockpit doors, redesigning ventilation systems, searching for anthrax, etc., is the equivalent of putting out the roach traps.  We'll get a few.  Of course, we will.

But we'd do ourselves much better if we'd look under the fridge and remove that long-festering old food -- in the terrorist context: if we'd do something about the conditions that are breeding terrorists.

Otherwise, this is going to turn out to be a longer "war" than even Bush is warning us about.

7:17) 22-NOV-2001 00:39 Kip Winsett

Nicholas, Hear! Hear!

7:18) 22-NOV-2001 08:48 Mary Catherine Bateson

As I checked in for a flight from Chicago yesterday (Wed before Thanksgiving), I thought about what to say to the clerk: "Have a nice day"?  Heaven forbid, especially on one of the heaviest travel days of the year.  "Have a peaceful day"?  Too ominous.  Finally, I arrived at "Have a day to be proud of," partly because I could see the great efforts United was making to move things ahead smoothly -- and the woman beamed.  So, I offer that to you all for your travels.

7:19) 24-NOV-2001 22:36 Kip Winsett

There have been some concerns raised over the potential loss of liberty here at home in response to the 911 act.  A friend pointed me to a website about FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).  I was shocked.  I include a portion of it here for any who like me were unaware of the scope of the powers given to the federal government and the vagueness of what it takes to trigger its application.

FEMA was created in a series of Executive Orders.  A Presidential Executive Order, whether Constitutional or not, becomes law simply by its publication in the Federal Registry.  Congress is by-passed.  Executive Order Number 12148 created the Federal Emergency Management Agency that is to interface with the Department of Defense for civil defense planning and funding.  An "emergency czar" was appointed.  FEMA has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies; the bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic.  Executive Order Number 12656 appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers.  This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians.  The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry.

Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen:

Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to seize all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10999 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, and designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

7:20) 26-NOV-2001 21:35 Mary Boone

Nicholas -- I couldn't agree more that the most reliable way to be "safe" is to share more of what we have with people who are in desperate circumstances.  Thank you for such a thoughtful and informative response.

Thanks to you, Kip, as well for that amazing and illuminating expose on what the government is in a position to do.  I think the idea that the government could do these things has always hovered at the edge of my consciousness, but it's quite something to see it in black and white.

I have to say, having been stuck in Venice Italy on Sept. 11 and having not been able to return for a week after that, it was a very strange feeling to realize that the government of my country could shut its borders to me.  It gave me just the tiniest, small taste of what it must feel like to be a refugee.

7:21) 26-NOV-2001 23:04 Raymond Alden

In regards to "Executive orders": I assume that once invoked they would be subject to challenge in the courts on constitutional grounds.  No?

Of course, the intent is to deal with a sudden need, and by the time a challenge worked its way through the courts, the need might have diminished.  But then there is the question of injunctive relief.  I wonder!

7:22) 27-NOV-2001 01:06 Kip Winsett

Ray, I wonder, too.  What I find disturbing is that I can see how this evolved and it even makes sense in case of a severe emergency - I just wish the "severe emergency" were better defined - as well as what determines when it is over.

I have no idea what relief the courts might provide in such a situation.  A lot of undefined territory here - part of what makes me stop and think/wonder/worry.

7:23) 27-NOV-2001 18:12 Raymond Alden

"Severe emergencies" and "temporary authority" are like "temporary housing" and "temporary offices" during wartime.  They seem to hang around forever.

7:24) 29-NOV-2001 20:34 Douglass Carmichael

There should be a great systems model here.  Who was the woman from Florida who talked to us about risk analysis in La Jolla?  The probabilities of events, the costs, the misuse by government (calling it war rather than a police action for example), and alternative models.  The truth is, no one will try to hijack a plane now, and the awareness that luggage is not scanned is now much more widespread.  The total system cost is very high, and what will pay for it?  A tax on productivity?  On cigarettes?

This is an example that large groups can't always think well.  Where is Mary Douglass?

7:25) 30-NOV-2001 16:12 Richard Farson

I heard former NY Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan hold forth the other night in Washington DC on a program about architectural security entitled "Freedom or Fortresses" (sponsored by RTKL, a major architectural firm, believe it or not), and his position was even more radical than my own.  He advised doing "nothing".  Just go after the perpetrators.  Don't change a thing we are doing here, but go over there and get them.  And this from a man who has been in the Senate and lived through bombings and shootings there, and who, while he was Ambassador to India received a call from Egyptian intelligence that there would be an assassination attempt on his life the next day.  Instead of calling in heavy guards, he simply went on the scheduled tour he was to make of Old Delhi, figuring that no assassin would be likely to go there.  He also credited the Secretary of the Senate, who was also on the program, for having operated to keep the Senate in session in the capitol.  But, unlike him, she had an unbelievably long list of security measures she wants to install.

When asked about them, she said that she was a good friend of one of the guards who was shot.  That kind of response tends to shut questioners and critics up, but I thought at the time that having victims, or their relatives and friends, decide on the security measures that they now believe are necessary may be the reason we cannot introduce any kind of rational thinking into this process.  In our systems of justice, we sympathize with the victims, but we do not place them or their families on juries, because we know that the judgments rendered would be excessive, would not be measured.  Perhaps we should use the same kind of analysis in our assessment of the security measures called for by victims, or in the heat of the moment.

7:26) 01-DEC-2001 01:16 Sandy Mactaggart

I have just returned from two weeks in Patagonian Argentina and Chile.  Passing through security at Toronto airport, my toilet kit was opened and a 'housewife' containing only needles and thread, was confiscated because the needles were apparently classified as a dangerous weapon.  I have never felt so safe flying commercially, in spite of the nonsense that abounds in today's weird attempts to frustrate terrorists, for example, substituting plastic knives for metal ones at mealtime, but leaving metal forks, which are equally effective weapons.

I must say, though, that I think I am at more danger from the possibility of skimping on maintenance by cash strapped airlines than I am from hijackers.

Were I in charge of security, I would provide every passenger at the boarding gate with a wicked looking dagger to be turned back in on arrival at the final destination.  That way, every hijacker would have to face the overwhelming certainty of being killed by the irate majority of passengers, before he could fulfill the purpose of his martyrdom.  I say this, because unlike before September 11th, when most passengers survived hijackings, no passenger is going to expect to survive flying into a building, and it is well known that if the aircraft is successfully taken over by hijackers and deviates from it's assigned route, it will be shot down by the US Air Force immediately.

That, (as it was for those on the fourth aircraft that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11th), is a strong incentive to attack hijackers with your bare hands if necessary.  But wicked looking knives are much more effective, and just think of the savings in eliminating the salaries of armed marshals on aircraft!

7:27) 01-DEC-2001 01:38 Richard Farson

Perhaps, Sandy, there could be a short addition to the screened instructions on how to use your oxygen mask, etc., showing how to subdue a terrorist!

7:28) 01-DEC-2001 20:32 Raymond Alden

Delightful idea!  Arm every passenger with a good knife, and let any potential hijacker estimate his chances of success!  I love it!

7:29) 06-DEC-2001 18:51 Douglass Carmichael

Totally counter intuitive wonderful!!  Yet, isn't this what the gun lobby says about guns?  I can just see all the passengers clutching their knife, watching the movie, primed for an argument with someone about something.  And the guy who orders the four scotches?

7:30) 07-DEC-2001 22:28 Kip Winsett

Doug, thanks for the good laugh! (<:

7:31) 08-DEC-2001 17:41 Richard Farson

Harlan, I'd like to ask you about Daniel Patrick Moynihan's advice on what we should do about domestic security.  His answer, "Nothing.  Just go get the perpetrators."

7:32) 09-DEC-2001 22:04 Harlan Cleveland

[Lifted from "Terrorism in the 21st Century," 1:179]

Dick:  A simple answer to a complicated question nearly always risks being wrong.  In this case, it's hard to "go after the perpetrators" until they have perpetrated -- and most of "domestic security" is aimed at prevention.  "Going after the perpetrators" means spreading a wide dragnet -- how wide is a central policy question about prevention of terrorism.  Pat Moynihan has an unusual capacity to think hard about complex questions; where did he toss off that too-easy answer?

7:33) 09-DEC-2001 23:46 Richard Farson

Harlan, Moynihan and I were on a program entitled, "Freedom or Fortresses," looking at the whole domestic security picture, but mainly architectural measures.  He made that comment in response to a question during the panel discussion.

7:34) 10-DEC-2001 22:36 Mary Boone

According to the NYT today, it looks like our best bid for domestic security will come from dismantling the financial network Al Qaeda has built.  Probably more useful to spend money on blocking their money than on new x-ray machines.

7:35) 10-DEC-2001 22:54 Mary Boone

How about giving financial incentives to people who uncover sources of Al Qaeda funds?  Maybe we could use some of the $50 million bounty we've put on bin Laden and the Mullah.

7:36) 11-DEC-2001 00:12 Richard Farson

Good idea, Mary.  We need to think more creatively about spending that dough.

Interesting that, as far as we know, the 50 million offer hasn't yet bought us anything. . I guess we think that for enough money, people will do anything.  The Al Qaeda doesn't seem to buy into that ethic.

7:37) 11-DEC-2001 16:08 Mary Boone

The fact that the bounty hasn't worked yet is precisely why I think that at least some of the money should be redirected to efforts here to uncover parts of the money network.