Thursday, August 16, 2007

CNN: US Spy Satellites Are Watching You

Just great. They were already listening to our calls, reading our emails and our web history, and datamining our personal, health, credit, legal records. Now they are going to be staring at us too. We are allowing ourselves to be stalked by our own government for any reason it deems necessary. No warrants needed.

People need to get real. Terrorism is a real threat, but it ranks way down on the list of things to be blowing tons of money on and giving up our rights and privacy for.

Every change made since 9-11 in response to 9-11: The Patriot Act, domestic spy programs, the trashing of habeas corpus, DHS,... all of it ought to be repealed.

Don't Be Terrorized *
You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder
Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the 9/11 atrocity, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. (300,000,000 ÷ 3,000 = 100,000 ÷ 78 years = 1282) In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered.
Think about it.