Naivety and the Devil: Sean Penn and the El Chapo Story

 

“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.” 
Mark Twain 

I was really mad when I read that Rolling Stone had agreed to publish an article of Sean Penn’s interview with Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán or El Chapo, the notorious Sinaloa cartel leader, one day after his recapture by Mexican marines.

At this point, I had not read the article but was incensed by the simple fact that Mr. Penn and Rolling Stone thought it was perfectly okay to give a mass murderer, a man directly responsible for at least 100,000 murders (not including those related to the consumption of drugs), a global platform where he could freely express himself and likely further his own celebrity.

I was angry before I found out that not only did Rolling Stone provide a global platform to this murderous psychopath, but they also gave him editorial control. The magazine agreed to let El Chapo, a convicted drug dealer and murder, edit or make changes to the story before they published it.

Rolling Stone claims that El Chapo never made any changes but there is a fundamental problem with agreeing to this stipulation in the first place, and good reasons why no respectable media outlet ever agrees to it. This practice creates an unconscious but inherent bias in the mind of the interviewer/storyteller because they are concerned that if the subject feels like they are portrayed in a negative light or in an unflattering way, they will reject the piece.

Reading the article, it feels like Sean Penn actually harbours some admiration for this monster; and Mr. Penn seems naive enough to believe that El Chapo is a victim of circumstance and poverty. I encourage you to read it for yourself but below are some of the things Penn says about El Chapo:

“It's paradoxical because today's Mexico has, in effect, two presidents.” “It was this president of Mexico who had agreed to see us.”

“…El Chapo is a businessman first, and only resorts to violence when he deems it advantageous to himself or his business interests.”

“This simple man from a simple place, surrounded by the simple affections of his sons to their father, and his toward them, does not initially strike me as the big bad wolf of lore.”

“…conjuring the vision of a wide-eyed schoolboy unsure of his teacher's summons.”

Later in the article Mr. Penn poses a series of questions that sound like they come from a 10 year old child conducting a homework assignment, to find out more about his father. Here are some excerpts (questions in bold followed by El Chapo’s response): 

Do you consider yourself a violent person? No, sir. 
Are you prone to violence, or do you use it as a last resort? Look, all I do is defend myself, nothing more. But do I start trouble? Never. 
What is your opinion about who is to blame here, those who sell drugs, or the people who use drugs and create a demand for them? What is the relationship between production, sale and consumption? If there was no consumption, there would be no sales. It is true that consumption, day after day, becomes bigger and bigger. So it sells and sells. 
The two times you escaped, it is worth mentioning, there was no violence. With me, it did not come to that. In other situations, what's been seen, things occur differently, but here, we did not use any violence.

I have no issue with interviewing men or women whom we deem evil, as long as there is some purpose or value to society in doing it. But it must never be done to allow them to aggrandise or as a pedestal to gain sympathy and further their lore. Frankly, I did not have any problem with Mr. Penn talking with Hugo Chavez or the Castro brothers; whether you like them or not, they are the elected leaders of their respective countries. While we might disagree with their worldview and governing styles, I do not see them as evil, even if our government chooses to vilify them. This is the justification Mr. Penn seems to give us for this interview. But in this case I simply do not agree because it is not the same thing.

Also, there is nothing wrong in telling the story of a drug lord, like Narcos (the Netflix series about Pablo Escobar), but it must be done through our eyes, not through the voice and eyes of the criminal. The Narcos creators have gone to great lengths to be factual but also to never glorify Pablo or the blood soaked world he created. They have been careful not to demean the bravery of the people who stood up to him or insult the memories of all the people whose lives he destroyed. It is very clear to anyone watching that Pablo Escobar is not the hero or the victim but the monster that he was.

El Chapo’s motives are personal financial gain and absolute power through fear and unchecked bloodlust. El Chapo does not simply kill rival cartel members or people involved the drug trade; he has mercilessly wiped out the families of politicians, policemen, journalists and all those who dared to oppose him.

Unlike prison guards in America who got greedy and took a bribe to help some prisoner escape, the choice for the Mexican prison guard is either to take El Chapo’s money, or to watch your entire family being murdered in front of your eyes. Not much of a choice.

In the article El Chapo tries to paint himself as a simple and poor farm boy, one who was driven into the drug trade because the Mexican economy offered him no other life choices. By the same yardstick, if Mr. Penn had interviewed Adolf Hitler, right before the fall of Berlin, he too might have talked about his troubled and poor childhood. How the death of four of his five siblings at a very young age deeply affected him. Hitler might have discussed wanting to join the priesthood or say how his father tried to force him to join the customs bureau, when all he wanted was to be was an artist. He too might have convinced Mr. Penn that it was the world and circumstances that conspired to push him down a path that was not of his own choosing and making.

We humans have the ability to paint a sympathetic picture of even the devil (and that is a good thing), but this is precisely why we must not with people like Hitler and El Chapo. Most times I believe it is worth reserving judgement about a person, or at the very least hearing their side of their story and justifications for their actions, but there are a few times when the matter is black and white. There is no moral ambivalence with Hitler, nor is there any justification for his actions. People like El Chapo must never be given the opportunity to gain our sympathy to try and somehow justify their madness and cold blooded murder

Sometimes men are simply monsters and there is no benefit to society in trying to understand them or their motivations. In fact, it is better not to try. In these instances, as a society, we have to draw a line. Mr. Penn and Rolling Stone magazine just crossed that line.
 

Political Correctness and the Rise of Donald Trump

“I got a feeling about political correctness. I hate it. It causes us to lie silently instead of saying what we think.” 
Hal Holbrook

There has been widespread condemnation, from across the political spectrum, of Donald Trump’s latest outlandish suggestion of barring all Muslims who are not US citizens from entering the United States. This is not the first time he has tread heavily into the territory of race, religion and ethnicity. Mr. Trump launched his campaign pronouncing that all Mexican immigrants were rapists and drug dealers and should be shipped back to Mexico. Since then he also has offended women, blacks, news anchors, the wider Hispanic diaspora, and the list goes on.

I have read many social media posts and news articles dismissing Trump as “un-American” and as someone who does not reflect American values. Yet, Mr. Trump’s poll numbers and popularity have remained largely unaffected and his support continues to grow. A recent poll indicated that 68% of his Republican base would support him if he ran as an independent (Source: USA Today) and he has 37% support nationally.

It is easy but would be dangerous to dismiss Mr. Trump and his passionate band of followers as crazy right-wing republicans and white supremacist bigots. Or to consider them a passing anomaly that has nothing to do with the growing fears and frustration of a large percentage of the American’s. I have heard journalists like Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity try to argue the merits of some of Mr. Trump’s assertions, and I suspect that fears about Islam, terrorism and immigration are main stream, even if the hate rests in the fringes. It is just that the majority of people are too scared to express even reasonable views freely for fear of offending someone and being branded a racist.

I am not suggesting that we seriously consider any of Mr. Trumps’ proposals, but to simply dismiss them and the fears of a growing number of Americans would be far more dangerous. If we do, these frustrations will only continue to fester, turn to deeper anger, and come out in even uglier ways. The question we need to ask ourselves is why does Donald Trump exist as a political force?

Trump is part reality TV star, part American dream, part frustration with politicians and lack of leadership, and part a product of political correctness gone awry. Trump is a cancer built from all the problems we have swept under our carpets for far too long in an attempt to create something resembling a society where nobody is ever offended.

Think about the fact that his greatest appeal is that he says, does, and sounds like most normal people do; like your politically incorrect grandfather, father and uncle. He routinely makes gaffs, says dumb things, lashes out in anger, but never does he come across as scripted or disingenuous politician trying to sound politically correct and thus totally unnatural. 
 
I am sure that political correctness, when it started on college campuses a few decades ago, was well-intentioned and genuinely meant to educate us, make us more aware and sensitive to other people. It was meant to help us become accepting of other beliefs, faiths and cultures. But today it seems to have become about trying to mould everyone into thinking, sounding and saying the same things. It has become the default weapon to shut down all alternate world views and is being used to prevent people from speaking their minds.

The point is that we all do and say stupid things and we all have prejudices and biases. We always have and we always will; that is part of being human. Today, it feels like political correctness (PC) in America has metastasised into a way to chastise anyone and everyone who does not fit some random litmus test. But all we are succeeding in doing is shutting down alternate viewpoints and muzzling people who do not think the same way, or agree with our views. It is this avatar of PC that is in large part responsible for creating and unleashing the monster we now call Donald Trump.

This is a very dangerous thing in a democracy that claims to value freedom of thought and speech above all else. Because freedom of speech also means allowing people who view the world differently to air their views, no matter how offensive, hurtful or heinous we might find them to be.

Not everybody thinks the same way about homosexuality, global warming or taxation. However, there is a stark difference between someone who spreads hate and someone who simply disagrees; and not all disagreement is rooted in hatred. We need to start making those distinctions and respectfully disagree with people, but not try to muzzle or force them to change their views by shaming them. Instead, we need to show people a better way through our actions; that is the only way you to change someone’s mind and long-held beliefs.

We need to make sure that the mainstream voice is more powerful and thus drowns out the hate. Think about the fact that there are still many Nazi sympathisers and active members of KKK, but the power of the mainstream has driven them into the wilderness, and made sure they stay ostracised and in the fringes of society.

We need to accept that everyone lies, fibs and says things that are sexist, racist, and homophobic. This does not make you a liar, racist, misogynist or a homophobe. We are human and will never be perfectly polite or politically correct because part of being human is doing and saying dumb and hurtful things – sometimes in anger, sometimes out of frustration or pain and very often in a misguided attempt to be funny.

I do not want to live in a world that is so superficial and forcibly sanitised, that we have to worry about everything we do and say. If we continue down this obsessively political correct path, all we will achieve is to alienate friends and family, and fuel the hatemongers even more. One day we will wake up to find that we have stopped independent thought, free speech, social experimentation and personal growth.

Our greatest ability, as humans, is not to be perfect in everything we say, do, feel and think, but to learn and change, after we have been shown a better way by others.

 

Dangers of Politically Correcting History

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”

Augusten Burroughs

If we want to, we can find fault with Mother Teresa, as a Hindu right wing group in India recently did. I have no doubt that she made mistakes, misspoke, and if we scrutinise every moment of her life we also will find numerous events and instances where there is cause to be critical of her actions and possibly even some of her deeply held beliefs. This is because even a saint is human, and therefore beautifully flawed like the rest of us.

There is a very dangerous movement underway in America, one that feels like an attempt to re-write history to make it more sanitised and politically correct, and therefore less offensive to people today. What is most frightening about this is that it is being done in a way that completely disregards the historical time and context. It is taking an irrational and one-sided view of history by trying to apply a modern day lens to it.

A few years ago a Mark Twain scholar and his publisher New South Books decided to release versions of the classic novels ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ deleting the word “Nigger” and replacing it with the word "slave" (Source: Publishers Weekly article).  That is akin to painting clothes onto a Picasso’s Blue Nude painting because women today find it offensive.

This movement is threatening to spread beyond desecrating works of art and of literature, setting its sights historical figures by attempting to re-evaluate their contributions to society, but evaluating from inside a blind and alarmingly inane fog of political correctness.

The irony is that this is happening under the guise of promoting inclusiveness and greater tolerance. The people championing this cause do not seem to realise that shutting down all alternate viewpoints and censoring historical facts (to fit their worldview) is the very definition of intolerance.

At Princeton University, a protest led by the Black Justice League is demanding that the college “publicly acknowledge the racist legacy of Woodrow Wilson,”  America’s 28^th President, and take steps to rename the public policy school and residential college” and  remove his visage from every corner of the campus. (Source: NYTimes article).

Wilson grew up in the land of the KKK, the Deep South, and clearly held pro-segregationist views, as demonstrated by his efforts when US president to remove black officials and administrators from government. He also stood steadfast in refusing to admit black students during his tenure as president of Princeton College. Yet, he is also the same man who “oversaw the passage of a range of progressive legislation previously unparalleled in American history. Samuel Gompers, the most visible labour leader of the time, described Wilson's achievements as a "Magna Carta" for the rights of the workingman” and Wilson was one of the leading supporters of the League of Nations. (Source: Huffington Post article). There is no question that Wilson’s legacy is a complex one and that he held some detestable views, if we are to judge him with today’s cultural lens. But he did not live in the 21^st century and that is precisely the issue.

Wilson, like most men (unlike a Hitler or Idi Amin) and like the vast majority of human beings, is a multi-faceted and complex person. So, before we attempt to erase from history books the likes of Winston Churchill or Woodrow Wilson, we need to stop and ask ourselves a few serious questions. Were the behaviour and views of these men a symptom of the time in which they lived and of their upbringing? Did these men devote their lives to spreading hate, akin to a Klansman or Hitler? Are we looking at the sum of their parts, over the period of their lives and not just one aspect of what made them complex beings? And most importantly, will doing this not just simply tilt the pendulum of history in the other direction and once again fail to present the full picture?

Would it not be better for us to use this moment of greater awareness as an opportunity to ensure that we can start to provide a more complete picture of these men, and therefore our history, rather than attempt to scrub or rectify it?

Also, if we go down this path, then we must think about how and where we would draw the line. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and Andrew Jackson were all slave owners. Abraham Lincoln famously said in a debate, in 1958, “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favour of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favour of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people…” (Source: Bartleby.com). We all know what Lincoln went on to do; so how should we now allow people to judge him – racist or reformer?

Nobody is suggesting we sit back and accept a one-sided view of history or accept a view that might justifiably have been ‘white-washed,’ but eradicating every flawed figure within it is not the solution. Human beings are complex, multi-faceted, ambiguous, emotionally charged and irrational beings. Our greatest strength is not in learning how to never say, do, think or believe things that may be inherently wrong, but in our ability to change. Greatness comes not from being perfect, but from the ability to learn from our mistakes and change even our most deeply held beliefs, as Abraham Lincoln showed us.

We will do future generations a great disservice, hurting the cause of tolerance and equality greatly if we attempt to take the opposite but still one-sided view of these men. So instead of expending our effort to erase murals and tear down busts and change names of buildings, let us re-examine history in an effort to add colour, to present the full and complex picture of the people they were.

Tolerance can only be promoted through a deeper understanding of the flaws and complexities that make us all unique and human, not by pretending we can ever be perfect.

Guns and the Second Amendment: A Common Sense Solution

“There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.”

Dwight Eisenhower

Lately, it feels like every other week we hear about a tragic and random mass shooting in America. Sadly, this seems to have become such a common occurrence that the post-tragedy outpouring of sympathy has become rote while our outrage seems to have dissipated into resignation. This should be frightening to everyone, irrespective of where they stand on the issue of guns rights. It is as if both sides have resigned themselves to the fact that these tragedies will continue to occur because lawmakers have neither the political will to take on the NRA, nor the backbone to stand on principle and find a common-sense solution to protect young lives.

The second amendment, written by James Madison in 1787 and ratified by the House of Representative in 1791, made imminent sense. At the time, standing armies had been used by the British and European monarchies for centuries as tools of oppression against the people. Apart from fighting wars, armed state militias were used to help protect people from bandits, American Indians and militias from other states (source: Wikipedia). However, that was more than 200 years ago and arguably today there is no threat to America or its fifty states from bandits, American Indians or the British. Iranian or North Korean long-range missiles and home grown terrorists are something to consider, but none of these threats can be countered by the right for individuals to bear arms. There is also now a formal US army and National Guard structure comprising of the old ‘State’ militia, after the Militia Act of 1903 organized the various state militias into the present National Guard system (source: Wikipedia). It is for this reason that the rest of the world does not understand America’s continued obsession with guns in the face of the growing rash of violence.

There is no quick and easy answer to this problem, but I do believe the time has come for all of us to act - it would be unconscionable not to do so. That said, I am optimistic that we can find a solution that will satisfy people on both sides of the amendment. However, before we can get to a practical and workable solution, both sides need to listen to each other and take into consideration the other’s legitimate concerns and constitutional right.

Let’s start with the pro-gun advocates - other than it being their constitutional right, and a hobby, many people also own guns for sport. I don’t think anyone will have an issue with people wanting to own guns for hunting (other than animal rights activists), provided hunters are properly trained to use their weapon, take care to avoid accidents, and do not trophy hunt endangered species. For the most part, this is true of all hunters, other than Dick Cheney. And, yes, accidents do happen, but that is not sufficient reason to revoke a gun license for those who like to and want to hunt.

The second area involves having a gun to protect oneself. This is the more complex part of the gun rights debate and the more contentious one. Here I want to point to an important difference between being a city dweller and a suburbanite. One can make a pretty persuasive argument that in large cities it is hard to justify the need for a person to have a gun at home, leave alone to carry a concealed weapon. For the most part we live in apartment buildings, where there are always other people around. In the event of a crime or burglary, help can be there within minutes.

There is also a difference in psychology that is worth considering. I find that people in big cities tend to be more aggressive, impatient and rude, compared to our brethren in smaller cities and towns everywhere in the world. I imagine that the constant dog-eat-dog competitiveness and daily rat race can cause us city-dwellers to lose our patience and tolerance over the years. So, given the access to police and help from strangers, who are more often than not at scream's length, and with people generally more angry, aggressive, and pissed-off – why would we want to put a gun in their hands?

If someone in a city pulls a gun, during a crime, common sense tells me that the odds of getting out alive or unharmed would go down dramatically if the victim were to pull out a weapon of their own. So, I have a hard time justifying the need to own a gun in big cities like New York, Bombay or Shanghai.

Now let’s for a moment leave the madness, hustle-bustle and bright lights of big cities and travel to a home in a small town in America. We exit the highway and find ourselves on a smaller road. We suddenly start to see the scenery change. There are no more McDonald’s or concrete structures; instead we are surrounded by lush green fields and gently meandering hills. There are no buildings here, and often the only views on the horizon, where the fields end, are a thick brush of trees that form the beginnings of a forest. The homes are not clustered together. One can drive seconds and then minutes between each one. There are no hospitals, police or fire stations. Even the GPS screen, which normally shows surrounding areas by highlighting roads, bridges, rest stops, fuel stations and various different aspects of civilization, goes completely black, until there is just darkness all around. Suddenly, even the sparse and dispersed homes start to disappear and one is surrounded by green, brown and the sounds of nature. You can no longer tell where the homes are because each has a long winding driveway off the little country road and are completely hidden from view. In what seems like an age since one left the highway, we come to the type of navigational point we were told to look for – a large green mailbox. This destination is officially in the middle of nowhere, and this is life outside the big cities and city suburbs of America.

 

The reason for that long and detailed picture is a simple but important one. If you live in a place so isolated, cut-off, and miles away from the nearest hospital – a place where in a crisis, police and emergency response times can be upwards of thirty minutes, and the sound of your loudest gut-wrenching screams are drowned out by the trees barely after exiting your lungs – would you not want a weapon to protect your wife, sister, daughter, son or yourself in the event of a threat? I know I would. I would go even further and argue that in such surroundings, knowing that people own and carry guns actually serves as a deterrent to would-be robbers and criminals.

Now that we have viewed both sides of the argument, I think it would be fair to say that we can see why it is larger numbers of non-city folk who tend to support the 2^nd amendment while big city types tend to oppose it. Rather than changing the 2^nd amendment or attempting to create a complex set of laws that try to factor in where you live, I believe we can agree to something simpler that will satisfy both advocates and opponents.

I often hear gun rights advocates refute the notion that it is harder to get a driving license than buy a gun, saying that the former is a privilege while the latter is a right. Well, then I would add that while the latter may be a right, protected by the US constitution, it is also a great personal responsibility. If we can agree on this, then let’s make sure that only responsible people are able to buy and carry guns; and that we are also able to create a system that holds them responsible. I am not suggesting we turn this into a driving test, but that we take virtually the same model and create a system for gun purchase and ownership akin to the one we have for the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

My suggestion is to create a Gun Registration Office (GRO), as extension to the DMV in each state. Here is a starting outline of the GRO’s main functions, beginning with strict background checks that a majority of Americans already agree on:

Anyone buying a gun, no matter where they purchase it, would be required to: 

1. Pass a criminal background check 
2. Not have any history of mental illness (national database will need to be created and fines imposed for not keeping it updated) 
3. Complete a gun safety training course at a GRO accredited local range 
4. Register weapons and acquire a gun license for each weapon

The GRO would be the sole issuer of gun licenses and would be funded by gun license fees. 

1. License costs would be based on gun type, with additional costs for conceal permits and for certain types of assault or semi-automatic weapons (like car insurance)
2. Licenses would need to be renewed annually 
3. Owners would need to pass gun safety training, once every three years 
4. Only law enforcement will be able to access the GRO database, with a court order
5. Owners would get points and fines for minor offenses (similar to traffic violations) 
6. When a licensee dies their family will have 90 days to transfer the license to another family member, surrender or legally sell their guns through a GRO accredited dealer
7. Owners could lose their license for major lapses like: 

• Failing to report a lost or stolen firearm, accidentally discharging their weapon publicly (whether injury occurs or not)
• Failing to keep weapon out of reach of a child, being convicted of a serious crime e.g. assault with a deadly weapon or domestic abuse

Such a system will shut down the ability to legally sell guns without background checks (at gun shows, etc.) and stop people with mental illnesses from purchasing weapons. Of course, this will not to stop every madman from getting a gun and killing if he is intent on it; nothing will prevent that. However, such a system will go a long way in dissuading straw purchases (people who buy guns for those who cannot pass background checks) and preventing irresponsible gun owners from owning guns; i.e. people who allow their small children access to loaded weapons (Source: Washington Post article), fail to report a stolen or lost firearm or have a history of domestic violence, etc. 

I hope both sides can agree that it is the best way to add transparency and accountability, without limiting the right of individuals. It also serves to protect responsible gun hobbyists and owners, and does so in a way that will allay the fears of gun-right opponents. Such a system would not require banning any type of firearm.

All the gun owners I know are responsible, law abiding citizens, so should have no objection to making this constitutional right more secure and transparent, while being held accountable for abusing it.

The Patriot Act, Terrorism and the Irrationality of Fear (Part 2)

READ: Part 1 here.

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”

James Madison

Now let’s look at the two main arguments that lawmakers and spy agency officials constantly put forward to justify the far reaching and arbitrary nature of the current surveillance programs. Governments around the world agree that acts committed by seemingly normal people with no affiliation to a terrorist group are both the new soup du jour and their greatest fear. Yet, a few honest people in security establishments also add that there is virtually no way to detect or stop these people unless we can find a way to read their minds.

This begs the question whether programs exposed by Snowden, like PRISM, are an attempt by the government (perhaps unwittingly) to build a machine designed to detect an act of terror before it happens? A sort of pre-crime unit like in the one in the Steve Spielberg movie, Minority Report. Is the US government attempting to collect every piece of communication from every citizen, in the hope of trying to establish a pattern of behaviour that might indicate self-radicalization? Proponents of the current NSA programs would have us believe that such a program is the only way for the government and security agencies to keep us safe by stopping lone wolf attacks. 

Many lawmakers defend these programs by talking about the number of terrorist attacks that have been thwarted as a result of this surveillance, but are conveniently unable to provide any statistics due to national security concerns. Both the Justice Department and the FBI have publicly admitted that “in spite of all that added spying, they couldn’t point to one single case that was solved, or one single terrorist act that was thwarted through the use of these Patriot Act provisions.” (Source: Washington Post Article). Some people disagree with this view and argue the opposite, but, since we do not have access to ‘sensitive’ information, let’s look at the last few major terrorist attacks that have been thwarted.

In the case of the Times Square bomber it was a vigilant food vendor that alerted police and not the massive surveillance apparatus the government has built. It was a last minute tip from a Saudi informant that prevented the printer bombs, aboard cargo planes, from exploding in midair en-route to Chicago. The two packages bound for the US, had passed undetected “through four countries in at least four different airplanes, two of them carrying passengers” (source: NY Times). The Nigerian underwear bomber’s father personally went to the US Embassy in Abuja to warn the US government that his son was becoming radicalized. This tip was passed on to counterterrorism officials in the US, yet less than a month later Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab successfully passed through Nigerian and Dutch security using his real identity, paying cash for a one way ticket and never checked luggage – all things that are supposed red flags in our post-9/11 Patriot Act security apparatus. The older brother in the Boston marathon bombings was identified by Russian intelligence, who warned US intelligence that this young man on a path to being radicalized. I guess the NSA’s multi-billion dollar machine did not think so. 

Time after time we have seen that human intelligence is the only surefire way to thwart a terrorist attack. Human intelligence will always be the most valuable and effective way for us to stop any kind of attack, because all attacks require time to plan and the process of radicalisation is visible to the people closest to the would-be terrorist. The attacker needs time to procure bomb-making expertise, buy physical materials and will likely also have some accomplices. A friend, co-worker, family or community member will witness changes in these people; homegrown terrorists do not live in isolation. All of the recent lone wolf terrorists in the US have been well-educated and functioning members of society – but all must at some point have displayed signs of odd behaviour and warning signs to the people around them. This is where we need to focus. 

No amount of reading emails or storing metadata from our Skype and cellphone calls can provide this intelligence. We should focus our energy on winning trust in local communities and educating people to inform authorities the moment they see well-defined warning signs. I am not talking about asking everyone to spy on neighbours, but about picking up on overt changes in behaviour in people we have known all our lives.

One other factor that should concern us is the government’s growing reliance on machines and data. Every data scientist will tell you that ‘too much’ data is worse than having none at all. It can actually hamper one’s ability to prevent attacks because you either miss the needles in the haystack or spread yourself too thin trying to understand and connect every dot. Consider the sheer amount of data being collected today; it requires authorities to cast a much wider net and as a result lose focus on the more important warning signs.  

I am not suggesting that we abandon spying programs or get rid of the entire Patriot Act. Nor am I suggesting that we lay down our arms and meekly accept our fate. We absolutely must be vigilant and put measures in place to prevent attacks, but there also needs to be a discussion about the limits and oversights that must be placed on these programs. Government needs to be more honest about the realities and limits of how safe we can be, rather than pandering to voters and behaving like there is always something more that can be done after a new attack. 

America’s founding fathers were acutely aware of too much power corrupting people and built safeguards into the constitution. Today, our government and security agencies are building deeply sophisticated and frighteningly broad surveillance systems designed to spy on their own citizens in the name of protecting us from acts of terror. The problem is that this is a disingenuous and irrational argument, one that will not make us safer, but will lead to greater abuse of power with less transparency and virtually no accountability.

The question we need to answer is – have we become so irrational in this fear that we would give up freedoms for which our forefathers gave their lives? Are we willing to live in a world where government watches our every move and monitors every form of communication just to find one needle in a vast haystack? I know I do not want to live in such a world. I would rather take my chances and die in a terrorist attack.