The goal of a terrorist is to cause terror. Last week’s arrests demonstrate how real security doesn’t focus on possible terrorist tactics, but on the terrorists themselves.
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And if you want to know what you can do to help? Don’t be terrorized.
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If we refuse to be terrorized, then they lose — even if their attacks succeed.
So I switched projects at work - and I ended up working on an Air Force project at the Pentagon. Probably not what my parents expected, and I’m sure not what my high school teachers (at the Quaker K-12 school I attended) would have guessed. Lots of security clearance/classified stuff, pass swiping, a significant amount of money (like everyone in my entire area is sitting in an Aeron Chair), and boatloads of acronyms… technically, for example, I’m doing work for AF/CVAC, in the CRC, which is next to the CAT, all inside the RSAC. Anyways, I just read this NPR article: A (Nearly) All-Access Pentagon Pass, which captures some of the feel of the place, including Rumsfeld telling a “joke”: “You know why a yuppie can’t say the Pledge of Allegiance?” I won’t spoil the punchline for ya.