Bin Laden can win in so many ways...

Random Gemini posts this Guardian piece about ubiquitous video surveilance and technological identification methods. Pretty interesting, and there is a lot that I could say about that. I am not going to though, at least not in this post. What has prompted this post is the last sentence:

Either way, Bin Laden would have won.

I am really, really tired of that particular argument. Bin Laden is not out to cause us pain or make us lose our liberty in some abstract fashion. Bin Laden won't win if we video tape each other constantly and have law enforcement watching us in the showers. He won't have won if we end up destroying the earth from Global Warming or if Abortion is outlawed, or Gay Marriage legalized or any other of a thousand other things that people don't like and that might concievably occur in the future. Bin Laden only wins if he gets what he wants, which is, in more or less this order, removal of all Western forces from Islamic lands, the re-establishment of the Caliphate, and eventual subjugation of the Earth under Islamic Law. Those are 'wins' for Bin Laden. Cops tracking us with our cell phones is not. Now, just because something is not a win for Bin Laden doesn't mean it is a good thing, and certainly it is fair to argue that making Bin Laden lose does not require a certain price or the relinquishing of a given liberty. Hopefully we can stop making these stupid Bin Laden wins arguments soon. If we don't Bin Laden wins. (If you want to comment on the actual ubiquitous Camera issue I recommend clicking through to Random Gemini's post and commenting on that there.)