So I returned to the archives to get perspective.
Jordan's question, 'what is to be done with people who're determined to commit crime?' is most clearly expressed here --
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050905/019640.html>
Of all the replies offered as I write this, I think the one which directly addresses Jordan's query was written by W. Kiernan --
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050905/019675.html>
Kiernan's emphasis on the non-negotiable requirement for evidence (which, as he points out, needn't be the actual deed, but the uncovered conspiracy to commit the deed) as the beginning, middle and end of any 'preventative security' program is right on-target.
The State already has sufficient power to detain people who're conspiring to commit a crime and to determine, at regular intervals of open review, that the danger they pose persists, warranting their continued detention.
No remarkable innovations are required, it seems to me.
Without evidence of intent, we begin to enter murkiness where the State exercises a right to detain or otherwise interfere with people who, it's believed, might commit crimes because of their political beliefs and affiliations, donations they've given to groups tagged as being 'enemy organizations', events they've attended (i.e. the sermons of a cleric who applauds violence) and other shifting sands.
No doubt, certain individuals who do some or all of the above will be inclined to take destructive action and it would be good if there were a non-stupid method of intercepting the transformational process from simply angry to violently active.
But, with the exception of those who're already under surveillance and show their intentions by criminally conspiring as listening devices cameras and undercover agents record it all there is no reasonable, consistently accurate and reliable method for doing this.
The architects of several (allegedly) canceled programs that sprang from the grave in the months following Sept 11. '01 -- such as Total Information Awareness -- realized this and attempted (are attempting?) to solve the problem by creating an inescapable web of databases, designed to track the movements of every person in the United States.
The idea being that from the data stream of recorded events activity patterns will emerge around certain nodes (also known as "persons") that will enable intelligence and law enforcement agencies to determine who their surveillance and detention targets should be.
I hope I don't have to explain the profound problems with this.
One final thing...
In security, as in all things, there are trade offs. As Kelley has said before in a different context, the only "safe" computer is a non functional computer -- off the net, powered down, useless.
It is secure but not a functioning tool.
So we do the best we can to secure our networked, functional machines with the thought in the back of our minds that at some point, despite out best efforts, some intrusion may happen.
This is the price of actually using the machine in a wired world.
Similarly, although there are methods available that would intercept, and perhaps prevent, nearly all terrorist activity, the measures required (again, in all but those case where surveillance is established and clear evidence of intent to do harm has been established is available) would create a dead society -- one in which relentless observation and runaway suspicion were the defining characteristics of our daily lives (we're closer to that now, but not quite fully there).
In other words, to have a country worth living in, we must accept, for the duration of this global emergency Washington helped create, a degree of uncertainty.
This is not easy; I surely don't want to die or be maimed because a bomb goes off in a cafe and I don't want any of you or yours to suffer such a fate.
So the urge to intervene to prevent that from happening -- even if it means taking extraordinary measures such as detaining people who "intend to do us harm" sans hard evidence -- is very human.
Even so, it's mistaken.
.d.