Over at BoingBoing, Cory Doctrow points out a BBC article detailing how a professional photographer was stopped by police from taking a photo of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, a building that’s probably being photographed by several cameras at any given time, 24 hours a day. What I really like about his post is the following quote, which I think nails it perfectly;
The real damage from terrorist attacks doesn’t come from the explosion. The real damage is done after the explosion, by the victims, who repeatedly and determinedly attack themselves, giving over reason in favor of terror. Every London cop who stops someone from taking a picture of a public building, every TSA agent who takes away your kid’s toothpaste, every NSA spook who wiretaps your email, does the terrorist’s job for him. Terrorism is about magnifying one mediagenic act of violence into one hundred billion acts of terrorized authoritarian idiocy. There were two al Quaeda operatives at St Paul’s that day: the cop and her sidekick, who were about Osama bin Laden’s business in London all day long.
Tags: culture, psychology, security, stupid
