[firstprimate]

So this may be considered hijacking, but here goes. What the EFF, and many others, get wrong is that this is terrorism aimed at the West because of 'our freedoms', or these are religious nutters who want to kill Westerners because jihad, porn, alcohol, the prophet told them to, it's in the Quran, etc.

The larger picture reveals that it's chickens coming home to roost (and I am not going to go into the long list of foreign policy actions that create the resentment). The Western public should not expect that their government's actions do not have consequences.

From a purely selfish PoV, you can expect that if your government is willing to kill/maim/oppress/steal/lie/cheat people of another nation, for whatever reason, that this will soon start happening to you (and it has - look around).

Pushing back against initiatives like this is futile. The fear your government sows will override any concerns for loss of civil liberties. So long as they get to use words like terrorists, Islamic Extremism, radicals and militants they control the conversation. And every time you use those words you set your argument back.

More pertinently, the West has a long, long history of violence against the other. Study that history as that is the only thing that will let you to question your presumption of superiority and allow you to open your eyes to the terrible suffering the West inflicts every day.

[ve55]

>What the EFF, and many others, get wrong is that this is terrorism aimed at the West because of 'our freedoms',

I'm not sure why that's relevant, I don't see anything like that in this article. I don't see any usage of words like 'freedom', 'islam', 'extremist', etc., either. As far as I can tell this article is neutral or just nonpresenting with regards to what you've mentioned.

[firstprimate]

FTA: "But terrorism is aimed, in part, at pushing us to jump to conclusions and take panicky steps that inflict more pain and misdirect our resources toward failed and dangerous ideas."