Searches like these are just band-aids covering up the real problem. As long as we think “terrorists” (whoever they may be, we might as well call them “witches”) are just compelled by some irrational sense of hatred, or hate us because we are “free”, we will never get at any useful explanations.

IMO foreign policy and the consequences of globalization are better places to start, as well as how our own consumer behavior in the West affects the rest of the world. But anytime I bring this up I am discredited as a conspiracy theorist or something equally ridiculous.

It’s interesting and disturbing that the government could misinterpret and anthropologist’s research because it takes and *unbiased* view of other cultures. And the agents performing the security checks and seizing laptops are very unlikely to have the understanding required to properly interpret the data.