Information sharing never really occurs as everyone is busy guarding their own private turf and trying to expand it.

Real Intell work does get done but not generally in Fusion Centers where the motto often is “Security Through Obscurity Protects Our Futurity”.

Nice people, loyal and well-meaning but you need a major clue by four to get most of them to even begin to understand the Internet and the mindset of Makers and suchlike.  I spent 25 years trying to do educate all the ones I came in contact with, I managed in some cases or there’s things that’d be a *lot* worse (usual “I can’t tell you specifics” stuff.)

So yeah, this ban is just scaremongering. 

They are two incidents still on my mind.

Undoubtedly, even without the internet, google maps and all that, a city like Tokyo where almost every spot’s well documentated with maps and guides, the risk is always there. When I stayed in Tokyo in the 1980s, I was amazed by the intricate subway system, well illustrated by maps on walls & pamphlets.

No way that a big city can do without maps. No way that criminals & terrorists alike cannot gather information beforehand, just like any ordinary citizen, unless measures like curfew is introduced to limit the range of movements…but…that’s only for…uh…no one really want that, right?

it is harmful weapons & materials that we must caution against, like chemicals & bombs.

Most places that urban explorers want to go visit are terrible places to live, otherwise they’re already squatted by the local homeless people.

This is paranoia. In trying to make live for terrorists just a slight tad more difficult, you’re spoiling it for the everyone else. And even worse, by linking unusual behaviour to terrorism you create a society where everyone has to stay on the rails provided, and every unsusual thing anyone could come up with will be persecuted.

You kill society this way. This is exactly the wet dream of terrorists: A society paralyzed and choking itself out of fear. If we reacted like that to every eventuality that has the potential to kill people (illness, accidents, bad wheather…), we’d still be cowering at the darkest end of our cave, suspecting each other of something or other.

Why give the terrorists free info?

Because the same argument could be made against Google Maps. Or Wikipedia.

Well that is totes cool, ’cause I would feel thankful if you brought me a big hot bowl of tom yum soup and set me up with a talented massage therapist right now.

Of course that’s not related to the post, either.