Search: “war on terrorism”

In the wake of a Canadian Federal Court decision that my former employer – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) – illegally retained data that it had collected legally under a court warrant, the fur is really flying.  Every major Canadian media outlet has been all over this story and the reporting has been uniformly […]

Those who know me know I am not a fan of Tom Cruise for all kinds of reasons not relevant to this blog.  But one movie he appeared in is directly germane to today’s topic.  In Minority Report, a film based on a short story by US science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, a man […]

You have all heard of the butterfly effect, right? The idea that a very small event can have enormous implications well beyond its initial parametres.  The official definition, courtesy of Wikipedia, is “the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large […]

The fight against terrorism is multi-faceted.  As we are seeing in Mosul as I write, forces from a number of countries, including Canada, are heavily involved in an effort to take back Iraq’s second largest city from Islamic State.  Security intelligence agencies such as my former employer, CSIS, play a vital role in carrying out […]

I have a fear of heights.  This fear makes it hard for me even to climb ladders. I know it sounds silly and irrational but that is what fears often are – irrational.  Yes, some fears are valid and they do serve a purpose – for example a fear for snakes and spiders as some […]

If there is one thing we know about terrorism it is that what we do – or what we don’t do – has a real chance of effecting what terrorist groups do.  For terrorist groups are really good at telling the world why they use violence and usually place the blame for their carnage on […]

Big data is everything these days.  There is absolutely no question that there is more information out there than ever before and more ways to collect it.  Everyone from companies to police forces are getting into the game with a view to earning more money or making their jobs easier and more efficient. Nor is […]

In the ill-named “war on terror” small victories, let alone crushing ones, are hard to find.  It seems that no matter how many terrorists we kill more rise up like the warriors that sprang from dragon’s teeth in Greek mythology and we see more attacks (one more today in Jerusalem).  So it is little wonder […]

Another set of terrorist attacks in the West, another desperate search for answers or explanations or rationale.  A man now in custody, Ahmad Khan Rahami, a naturalised US citizen of Afghan origin, is charged with planting a variety of bombs in Manhattan and New Jersey.  The targets selected and venues chosen to hide the explosives […]

The US has suffered through two scary incidents in the past 24 hours.  Fortunately, as of the time of writing, no one has died in either event.  A man dressed in a security uniform knifed 8 people at a mall in central Minnesota.  There are reports he talked of Allah and asked at least one […]