Jason B:
The sad part is that our own government is now terrorizing us. Everytime they get a new video clip from Osama they air it for us to see. I say that should not air, do not give Osama the satisfaction of terrorizing us. Our government is actually helping him by showing us the "most recent" Osama clips. Osama has our government and media trained to do the majority of his work.
That's an excellent point. A more effective response to a terroist act is to act like a duck looking serene on the surface and paddling like crazy underneath.
Instead of making major changes to our way of life to create the appearence of increased safety, we should have actually done something effective by quietly and swiftly found and executed the persons responsible in a covert manner. When we over reacted, limited our own freedom and liberty, changed our way of life, sent troops in harms way and spent ourselves into the financial toilet, we handed them the victory they wanted. And all they had to do was make one attack.
At this point they do not have to do anything more, as we are doing an excellent job of doing it for them. We are providing them the convenience of shooting pretty much the same citizens who are now serving in guard and reserve units on their home turf which allows the terroists to rise to the level of "combatants" and also claim a more honorable "oppressed freedom fighter" kind of status at home and in some foreign countries rather than forcing them to resort to terrorist acts which would deny them international support and sympathy.
Any further terrorist attack on US soil would actually harm their cause and would serve only to keep the US engaged and build support for a continuing occupation of Iraq or a widening of the conflict into Iran, North Korea etc. That is not something that is neccesarily in their interests as if we just go home, they get to call it a win over the Great Satan.
We have once again forgotten how to fight a guerilla war, which I always find ironic as unconventiuonal and guerilla warfare is largely how we won our independence.
My big fear is that my government in it's zeal to protect me from an extremely remote threat of terroism, (but not from much more direct threats like Vioxx, acid rain from China, second hand cigarette smoke, uncontrolled rises in medical and drug costs, large SUV's driven by teenagers, etc, etc, etc,) will decide that it is not a good idea to have anyone dive where I dive most often as the lake is contained by an earthen fill dam, the destruction of which would kill thousands.
The fact that scuba terrorists would need to plant thousands of pounds of exposives to demolish the dam and could do it more effectively from a boat or by just rolling it down the bank from the highway that crosses the dam probably would not be factored into the decison to ban diving to prevent a terrorist attack as restricting boating or rerouting traffic on the highway would inconvenience way too many people.
My concern is that some ignorant govt. officials will want to make some political hay by closing areas to scuba divers. Or ask local law enforcement to patrol such areas (as if they have nothing better to do). It could happen and has happened to some degree. 
