One Year After September 11

One year ago today, at 9:12 eastern, we posted World Trade Towers and Pentagon Attacked amidst the events of that day. Since Slashdot is really just a discussion site, I felt the most appropriate way to handle this anniversary is to simply do just that. I hadn't read those stories since the day it happened, and I really am at a loss for words. But I'm sure many of you won't be. And thanks to OSDN for turning banner ads off for the day.

Re:TV coverage feels wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

none of the major networks are running commercials. cnn, nbc, abc, cbs, msnbc, espn, etc.

This one says it all..

[MoonFog]

My thoughts go out to you all [userfriendly.org]

RIP one of many - Cindy Deuel

[opencity]

RIP Cindy Deuel [cindydeuel.com]

Re:TV coverage feels wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

WNBC (New York) is showing the ceremonies without any commercials.

I will not forget the one or many

[vcbumg2]

I will not forget Edward Earhart, 26, transferred to the National Ice Center last December after serving a three-year stint at Pearl Harbor. He, too, died during the Pentagon attack. Following in the Navy footsteps of his father and grandfather, Ed made meteorology a career -- his family talks about how Ed always relished tracking weather. Early this month, on his last visit home, Ed captured the curiosity of preschoolers by talking about clouds and weather in his cousin's classroom. Just as his friend Matthew Flocco, Ed earned high respect for his unflinching willingness to get a job done right. He talked often about his close family, their farm in Kentucky, and the Detroit Lions. He loved computers and was about to learn golf. In his memory, Ed's family has created a fund to help build a veterans' memorial.

The Real Effect of September 11

[michael]

As the Associated Press [newsday.com] summarizes them:

Overview of Changes to Legal Rights
By The Associated Press

September 5, 2002, 11:44 AM EDT

Some of the fundamental changes to Americans' legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act following the terror attacks:

* FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigation.

* FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests.

* FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.

* RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.

* FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES: Government may search and seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation.

* RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.

* RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.

Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

Yay for liberty and freedom! We are Americans! Look how free we are!

Re:TV coverage feels wrong

[zoombat]

Fox [foxnews.com] is going commercial free for 24 hours.

Best media coverage

[chrysrobyn]

For your best media coverage in the US, please turn to listener supported NPR [npr.org]. Here in Austin, TX, I have the impression that Clearchannel is taking a day to build a brand name. NPR is doing what they always do, trying to represent as best as they can the events that happen.

Save bandwidth. Listen to the radio. Or, if you're at work and can't get radio reception (like me), their live program stream is available in Quicktime [npr.org], Real [npr.org], or Windows Media [npr.org]. Politics aside, most people's computers can handle one of those programs.

Their online coverage is available here [npr.org], and their program schedule is here [npr.org]. Please note that all times are in Eastern time.

Re:Got me thinking...

[Des Herriott]

And:

September 11 (1973) US-backed coup overturns democratically elected government in Chile, leading to thousands of deaths, tortures and "disappearances"

Re:Thousands dead, freedom buried

[Anonymous Coward]

"we are not perfect"

Nelson Mandela agrees:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/africa/2251067 .s tm

Mandela on the US
Bush motivated by arms sales and oil
Dick Cheney a 'dinosaur'
US responsible for Iran's Islamic revolution
US action led to Taleban

Re:Got me thinking...

[FTL]

> March 28, (1979) 3 Mile Island

Huh? Why does that belong there? Not a single person died. Nobody was injured. [pbs.org] Granted, it was a PR disaster.

I'd add the Nedelin Catastrophe [astronautix.com] to your list. October 24 1960. Over a hundred Soviet rocket scientists burned alive. Destroying the USSR's ability to compete in the Moon race. Imagine what space would be like today if the space race continued beyond the Moon...

Re:ted hennessey

[gonar]

...He was a Geek. Just last week he setup DSL and 802.11b networking in his house....

should read, Just the last week before he died, not just last week.

sorry,

Schedule of NYC Events

[CritterNYC]

There are a lot of events going on in New York City through Sunday to commemorate the attacks on 9/11. I have posted a schedule [worldtradeaftermath.com]
on the WorldTradeAftermath.com [worldtradeaftermath.com] site.

Best wishes to you and yours, today and throughout the week.

Regards,
John

Re:Got me thinking...

[Arcturax]

Thank you for pointing that out, I just learned about this the other day in fact.

Here is a link:http://www.americas.org/News/Features/200110_ After_the_Attacks/200110Chile.htm [americas.org]

Re:Got me thinking...

[stanmann]

April 26,(1986) Chernobyl
April 20,(1978)Korean Airlines flight 007 shot down by Soviets in Russian airspace

Israel is "democratic"???

[mirnav]

Israel is not a democratic state, it is a state based on rules of religion. It does not have a constitution. Its laws are based on Torah, their religion's holy book.

Granted that their holy book does not tell them to cut off hands of kids who steal a bread, and in that sense, Israel is a better state than Iran. Nonetheless, make no mistakes, they are no different in the sense that they are based on rules of religion.

Not really

[danrik]

It is the right thing to do, though. Over the past few days, on TV and elsewhere, I have seen many "tributes" to the people who died on that day. TV shows commemorating the heroism of the New York emergency personell, the heroism of the people on the flight that did not crash into a building, etc. I even "half watched" a cople of these, mostly because I was too lazy to quit coding long enough to find a remote to change the channel. On every single one of these specials, I saw something that made me lose all respect for what they were trying to do: Commercials. If you think about it for a moment, TV stations are still charging for that advertising, and since they know that a sentimental American public will be watching those advertisements, I would imagine that they are charging a boatload more for that airtime. At that point, to me at least, these specials become less about "honoring the dead" and "remembering the tragedy" than they are about shameless and blatant corporate profiteering off of a tragedy. This simple action has placed Slashdot and OSDN a cut above the rest in my eyes, and I salute their action. /-Dan

Re:Got me thinking...

[dlkinney]

April 4th, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination.

Re:Best media coverage

[matzim]

Or, even better, find your (or somebody else's!) local NPR station and see if they stream too so that we don't /. NPR's website... Use the "mirrors" people...

Re:Got me thinking...

[Jonathan_S]

If your going to list Three Mile Island you should also have the really bad nuclear accident

April 26 (1986) Chernobyl Power Plant exposion.

Re:LIKE HELL I CAN'T!

[TGK]

1.) Total casualties at Nagasaki 73,884 [Source The Nuclear Files [nuclearfiles.org]]
2.) Total casualties at Hiroshima 145,000 [Source The Nuclear Files [nuclearfiles.org]]

Furthermore the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasiaki were not terrorist attacks. They were attacks made after a formal declaration of war against a foreign power. The attacks were directed at centers of production and military signigance as well as civilian targets. It is also important to realize that for the purposes of an invasion of the Japanese home islands there were no civilians.

In answer to someone who mentions US bombing of countries and compares that to the number of Jews the Nazis killed, your figgures on the Nazis are off by a factor of 2. The Nazis killed 6 Million Jews (and a good deal more non-Jews). For the record, Stalin killed something like 30 million of his own people, Mao over 60 Million.

Terrorism is different than war and it is different than political purges. All three are bad, but they are apples and oranges. Please understand that before you go making comparisons.

Re:US Response

[Troed]

You _do_ know that the CIA has performed terrorist actions against other supreme nations I hope? The US was convicted for one of those, in Nicaragua. The information is publically available.

I feel as sorry for an Afghan peasant as I do for stockbrokers in the USA. bin Laden considered him at war with the US - the US consider themselves in war with the whole of Afghanistan. You're both completely mad.

A couple detailed nodes on everything2

[Savatte]

Summary of evidence against Osama bin Laden in 9/11 terror attacks [everything2.com]

Chronology of Tuesday, September 11, 2001 [everything2.com]

Re:civilians on the planes

[0111 1110]

This is so ridiculous. If any terrorist group has a problem with the US government they can attempt a coup. Personally, I think it's about time for a change of government, although I don't want to see Afganistan's form of government here. Laisez faire capitalism or just plain anarchy would be nice though. I'd even fight for that and risk my life and all.

But blowing up a couple of tall buildings full of civilians is just plain stupid. It accomplishes nothing. Just senseless murder, like the work of a serial killer for instance. The killing of civilians always accomplishes nothing. If you want to overthrow a government, you need to defeat(or convert)its armed forces. There is no other way. So called "terrorism" is useless. I agree that the Pentagon and Camp David *are* valid military targets to an enemy. You're right about that not really being "terrorism". But most of the deaths were in the trade center. They screwed up with the military targets.

Heroes, victims, and Communication

[stonewolf]

On the anniversary of September, 11
2001, I want to talk about the difference between the victims onboard
the first three airliners and the heroes onboard flight 93. What was
the difference? Why did the people on flight 93 fight back? Why did
the people on the other planes just sit and die?

The answer comes down to communication and how knowledge forced the
passengers to change their survival strategy. Everyone wants to
live. Until 9/11/01 the best known strategy for surviving an airline
hijacking was to sit in your seat, cooperate with the hijackers, and
wait it out. That strategy worked because until 9/11/01 hijackers were
trying to get hostages to trade for concessions and publicity. But,
that changed on 9/11/01. On that day the hijackers wanted airliners to
use as weapons. And, they counted on the passengers sitting in their
seats and being cooperative to allow the plan to work.

On flight 93, the passengers fought back. Why? Because they knew that
three other hijacked airliners had been used as weapons and everyone
on board them had died. When they knew they were onboard a weapon
their survival strategy changed and the scope of their survival
strategy also changed. Their choices no longer affected only their own
lives. Now, theei actions also affected the lives of hundreds or thousands
of people on the ground.

Given the choice of sitting quietly in their seats and waiting for
death or fighting and having a chance to live, they chose to fight for
their lives and the lives of the people on the ground. They knew that
if they won they would live and so would an unknown number of people
on the ground who were targeted by the weapon they were flying on. They
also knew that they could die and still save people on the ground. At
that point the correct thing to do, the moral thing to do, the action
that saved the most lives, was to fight. They fought.

We that given the same choice many people through
out history chose to do nothing and died as cowards and victims. Those
who chose to fight we deservedly call heroes.

But all that misses the whole point. The reason that the heroes of
flight 93 fought is that they knew they had to fight or die. They knew
because there was an air to ground phone on the back of the chair in
front of them and they used them to find out what was going on. It was
free, unregulated, communication that made the difference. It was that
basic freedom to communicate that let them know they needed to
fight. It was that same that let us know they did fight. It was their right to be
informed that let them become heroes.

As people who use the Internet, the most free and open communication
media every developed, we are honor bound to fight. To fight any
attempt to reduce the freedom to communicate. To fight to spread the
right of freedom of information and communication to everyone in the
world.

Flight 93 proved to the world that free people given accurate
knowledge of their situation will make heroic choices and take heroic
actions. Are we heroes who can make the same choices? Will we fight to
protect and extend the right to communicate that allowed the heroes of
flight 93 to become heroes?

I hope so. I believe so. Let's roll.

Stonewolf

Re:DISPELLING THE AMERICAN OIL MYTH

[Kwantus]

finally, a worthwhile comment on /. now how do i give out mod points?

Tajikistan(?) will probably beat out Iraq once Unocal gets its pipeline through Afghanistan built. (You should also look into Karzai's former executive work and Armitage's former consulting work for *tahdah* Unocal.)

Re:Not really

[someguy]

I was watching the History channel and was very happy that, even though the program was paced for commercials, they did not show any. Instead the breaks consisted of interviews with NY firefighters.
If anybody is reading this and wants something that isn't sensational that deals with 9/11/01, try the History Channel

Re:Terrorism?

[rediguana]

Wrong wrong wrong. Check out what your law enforcement agency in charge of terrorism says [fbi.gov]. You'll note that it explicitly says 'the unlawful use of force and violence'. Waving a grenade around is not terrorism; it is threatening , will promote fear in the crowd, and probably illegal, but it is not terrorism. Now if they were to pull out the pin, throw it into the crowd, and claim to be doing it to promote a some agenda, then yes that would be terrorism. It doesn't become terrorism until a violent or forceful act takes place.

Re:Freedom after 9/11

[Nehemiah S.]

I think a far better "war" to compare it to would be the War on Drugs. In the cold war the enemy had a face- a flag, 20,000 tanks, and a massive number of nuclear missiles pointed at our cities. When the wall came down, the Cold War ended, because the Enemy was dead. No amount of arguing could hide that fact.

Here, unlike the Cold War but very much like the war against drugs, the Enemy is a small, amorphous band of well financed irregulars, spread throughout the world with no real central organization or even common goal. The War on Terrorism, like the War on Drugs, will go on indefinitely- in part because it is being fought by politicians and bureaucrats who have little to gain by victory and much to gain by continued "sacrifice" (on our part)- and in larger part because the actions we are taking to fight the War on Terrorism undoubtedly breeds more Terrorists. Hell, if my brother or sister was killed by a bomb from a B-52 during their wedding ceremony, you can bet that I would find a way to make my displeasure known- even without a religious directive. You would too, I hope.

This is directly analagous to the war on drugs, in which the enforcement of drug policies had 3 effects: increased the street price of narcotics by an order of magnitude, therefore making the drug trade only more lucrative; Increasing poverty among minority populations who found themselves either imprisoned or paroled for possession of said substances, and therefore incapable of holding any kind of professional or government position or in most cases even seeking higher education, forcing them to exist on either govenrnment subsidy or assume a criminal lifestyle; and finally, greatly increasing the power of the enforcers (mostly not elected) by rewarding their impotence to solve a societal issue.

Both fires were fanned by the flames of fear: fear of terrorists, fear of children becoming addicts. Fear of Arabs/muslims, fear of blacks. And both resulted in "temporary" loss of freedoms. How much of what we gave up to "win the drug war" has been returned to us? How did that war end, btw? Or rather, how is it going, here in it's 20th year?

Don't get me wrong, I want Bin Laden dead as soon as possible, and I want revenge for everyone who died last year. I have no real problem with the invasion of afghanistan, or the destruction of the taliban (although I disagree with the way it was handled). But I don't think that anything in the Patriot act would have stopped 9/11, and I don't think that anything in it will prevent future tragedies. I just can't see how forsaking my essential liberty so that certain politicians can have a 30 second sound byte and a resume bullet saying that they are "patriotic" or "against terrorism" is a good deal for me.