Bruce Schneier
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March 28, 2007
Al-Qaeda or Teens?
From The Onion:
"In this day and age, it's important for law-enforcement officials to consider global threats as well as local ones," Steinhorst said. "We could be dealing with an al-Qaeda sleeper cell attempting to collect information that they could use to plan a terrorist strike or some of those goth kids who knocked over that mailbox. Neither group has any respect for the law."
Excellent parody.
Posted on March 28, 2007 at 3:45 PM • 16 Comments
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Lou the troll • March 28, 2007 5:38 PM
And here I thought it was a strategic al-Qaeda move in taking out mailboxes to cripple the US' communication infrastructure and cause massive economic impact by displacing all those junk mail houses. Of course it does explain all the toilet paper in my trees on the same day the box went missing...
Bryan • March 28, 2007 5:57 PM
After I read the [excellent] Onion article, I went on to read the next item in Bruce's blog, about children needing body armor. Obviously the Onion article is parody, but I'm not sure that the children body armor one isn't.
Ralph • March 28, 2007 6:59 PM
I knew we could twist the security argument around to locking up all the kids in the concentration camp in Cuba!
Matthew Skala • March 28, 2007 9:20 PM
Jamaica, actually.
The Wikipedia article on Tranquility Bay which I'd prefer to cite has had all the relevant information removed in recent edits, but articles about it are on my own Web site here: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/youthrights/...
Fenris Fox • March 29, 2007 12:14 AM
Data mining: Tells the NSA everything they ever wanted to know about everybody - except the things that really matter. =;o)
Shefaly • March 29, 2007 1:50 AM
@ Fenris Fox: Does what they find out not depend on the questions they are asking while data-mining? If they ask stupid questions, they get stupid answers (GIGO principle of analysis)
zappahey • March 29, 2007 3:06 AM
@Bryan: "Obviously the Onion article is parody, but I'm not sure that the children body armor one isn't."
There's probably more accurate fact in The Onion than there is in the modern incarnation of The Times. It's a parody of it's former self.
Tom Welsh • March 29, 2007 7:26 AM
I didn't realize this was a parody until I read Bruce's comment on it. Sure, it is an example of grotesque over-defensiveness - but it's not so different from real cases that Bruce has linked to in the past.
Michael • March 29, 2007 9:40 AM
It is unbelievable, which is possible now a days. Simply intolerably.
jayh • March 29, 2007 1:44 PM
Last nite's "South Park" played all the anti terorism cards. One conclusion: 'profiling isn't much good when almost everyone hates us'
Alan • March 29, 2007 5:33 PM
If you read The Onion for long enough, it becomes very hard to tell the difference between parody and reality.
Get one of the large Onion books and read it for an hour, then go surf news web sites. Your brain will attempt to parse the "real news" as "parody news". And it usually does so very well.
Greg • March 30, 2007 8:41 AM
Much of real news is Parody. at the very least It is most certinaly a missrepresentation of the truth. This is not just a US thing either.
Its what we read. Because more people are lilkly to read a vamped up story, and hence gain more add revenue and or fame. Thats what reporters write... We don't wan't "truth" we want drama and entertainment etc....
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