Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US is a more aware society. Just because they are talked about in the news, doesn't make someone afraid, just more aware of the dangers in society. "fear of walking the streets alone at night" It depends on where you live. If I'm in Detroit, then yes, I will be a little more apprehensive about walking on the streets alone at night. It's just common sense. "Fear of someone spiking your Tylenol" If someone hacked i…
Your view is exactly the kind of fear I'm referring to. Re. Tylenol, 7 people died in an isolated area, and the response was national legislation and money and materials spent tamper-proofing every drug made since then. People are still scared of Halloween candy being tampered with (which in and of itself has never been recorded as happening). By that logic, we should have outlawed cars years ago; more than 7 people…
This needed to be done, otherwise someone would be able to do it again. It's not like it hasn't happened. This fear is based on a real case where real people died. Just like the security the US has in its airports. Which is interesting, because there hasn't been any successful terror attacks since 9/11. I would say that their job is being done quite well.
"People are still scared of Halloween candy being tampered with (which in and of itself has never been recorded as happening)."
I will agree with you here, this is a ridiculous fear, which is based more on myth than an actual case.
"By that logic, we should have outlawed cars years ago; more than 7 people die every day in accidents."
They do, but we need cars. We don't need non-tamper proof Tylenol. Although it may never happen again, there is an obvious flaw in the way Tylenol was bottled and that flaw needed to be fixed.
Of course, if they didn't fix this flaw, there would be a fear of Tylenol and people wouldn't buy it..and if it happened again, Tylenol would get sued from anyone that died (then what would we say..stop being afraid?). Fixing it is the smart thing to do.
Should we not wear seat belts either? The chance you will get in a car accident on the way to work is fairly low. Is this just "fear"?
We take preparations all the time, even if there is a small chance that something bad will happen. This is because when something bad does happen, it means death. It seems you don't value human life as much as the US government if you are willing to take that risk (and force everyone else to take that risk).
When Y2K happened, there were a ton of systems fixed (I worked on a few myself). After the new year, many people thought that nothing happened, so why did we make such a big deal about it? If nobody had taken the precautions and fixed these systems, there would have been problems. You (and anyone else against security) are comfortable. You don't see any direct threats and feel that security and precautions aren't needed as a result of this comfort.