from Hacker News

How the Norwegians Reacted to Terrorism

by netmau5 on 7/23/12, 3:40 PM with 138 comments

• by mootothemax on 7/23/12, 4:35 PM

  I do find it rather worrying that people around the world seem absolutely fine with all the various initiatives introduced, all in the name of preventing terrorism.

  I've had friends consider me crazy for complaining - way after the time, I hasten to add - that I'd had a small deodorant can taken off me in airport security, which I'd then had to purchase in the duty free shop.

  My wife's now tired of me complaining - again, after suffering through it in silent, stony-faced contemplation - that in any other context, I've just suffered sexual assault. I won't apologise for it; I find it extremely distressing to have my dick groped by a stranger. All because a machine went "beep" and one two many green bars lit up.

  And then you look at the London olympics; where the army will be frisking people who've dared to pay money to watch events. (NB: the army presence was guaranteed regardless of G4S's cockup). The army! And in this instance, it's not like the UK hasn't decades of experience of dealing with terrorism from the IRA.

  How well does all this work? Who knows, nobody's telling. I'd argue if there was anyone caught or something prevented by one of these systems, the government concerned would be singing from the rooftops. But no - it's "a deterrent." Gah.

• by maayank on 7/23/12, 4:46 PM

  a. It was domestic terrorism. Compare it to American reaction to domestic terrorism before 9/11 and we may start to have some actual merit in the comparison. There was no "War on terror" on the same scale after the Oklahoma City bombing (1995).

  b. There's a very different social reaction to domestic terrorism ("there's something rotten in us, we can fix this from the inside") and terrorism from the outside ("we're being attacked, we need to protect ourselves from those people"). Sure, even in domestic terrorism there's a social mindset of differentiation (i.e. "us v.s. them perpetrators") but not to the same extent.

  c. One year strikes me as too soon to assess anything and to pat on anyone's back.

  d. One could argue the US can't afford what Norway can afford, whether it's because of size, number of enemies, etc. Yes, one could counter-argue those same American policies perpetuate some of these reasons (i.e. number of enemies), but please keep it mind when doing such a comparison.

• by JeanPierre on 7/23/12, 4:49 PM

  There have been no changes to the law to increase the powers of the police and security services, terrorism legislation remains the same and there have been no special provisions made for the trial of suspected terrorists.

  A white lie, I'm afraid. Lex Breivik [1] has changed the laws so that regional security departments have a lot more power, in fact more power than what prisons have as of today.

  [1]: http://www.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=no&...

• by JackFr on 7/23/12, 4:33 PM

  While I understand the point being made, Breivig apparently acted alone, and his actions were most similar to Timothy McVeigh. The proper comparison would be to compare changes in policy following Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing.

  After the bombing of Khobar Towers, the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the first World Trade Center bombing, the bombing of the USS Cole, and finally the acts of 9/11, it would seem that US anti-terrorism policies in place at that time were not particularly effective.

  On the other hand, if we're just speaking of mass-murderers rather than terrorists, I don't think anyone has expressed an interest in increased police powers or surveillance, but rather implementing some rational gun laws.

• by at-fates-hands on 7/23/12, 4:39 PM

  Quite possibly the worst comparison I've ever seen. You're taking a country that not only has an incredibly low crime rate (they had 5 homicides in the entire country in 2009) and only has a population around 5 million. By comparison, Chicago has close to 3 million people just in the city.

  To try and compare our reaction to terrorism and how the Norwegians reacted to their recent mass killing is completely absurd.

• by tsotha on 7/24/12, 3:36 AM

  It seems like every time I read something new from Schneier I lose a little of the respect he's built up over the years. Are you really going to pretend the threat posed by one self-taught and self-financed guy with no friends is in any way comparable to that of a well-financed international terrorist organization with a shared ideology that has deep cultural and religious ties? Really?

  Of course Norway's response is different. Norway isn't the target of a terrorist organization. It had a terrorist incident that's now over. We had something similar in the US with Timothy McVeigh, and our response wasn't any more radical than Norway's.

• by TorbjornLunde on 7/23/12, 6:07 PM

  There has been quite a debate in the wake of this, and the our anti-terror institution have admitted that no increase of power and knowledge of their part would likely not have done a big difference. It is apparently extremely difficult to detect people working completely on their own, almost regardless of resources.

  Some of the focus in the debate has been more about how to avoid people ending up with value systems (or mental disease) that permit and promote such horrible violence.

• by buf on 7/23/12, 5:38 PM

  Example of what's happening in San Francisco today: Obama is in town, they shut down four city blocks.

  Example of when I was last in Bulgaria: Bulgarian president was in town, he danced Horo (traditional Bulgarian dance) with the people and made toasts.

• by michaelfeathers on 7/23/12, 4:19 PM

  Sobering. I cringe every time I remember that it is likely that someone will propose metal-detectors at movie theaters now.

• by gorm on 7/24/12, 11:21 AM

  Norway is a rather egalitarian country compared to the US and people seems to trust each other more and one theory is that this makes us more vaccinated for populist politics. I have this from the book "The Spirit Level" [1].

  Also the political system is based on pluralism so there is a built in conservatism in the system that will cause changes to take time. However, changes will come and this is a big eye-opener for many people.

  When the bomb exploded I was sitting on work around 30m away. I remember the day well, it was very quiet because it was in the middle of the summer vacation and we were only 3 people working in the "Web Department" of the central government, which usually have 26 people on work.

  I was working on testing the software behind https://go.usa.gov/ which is based on Drupal and I was struggling with it, working late. Short story, I suddenly was on the floor 2m away from my desk and when I looked around I was shocked to see that all my colleagues offices was blown in with papers, desk and computers laying all around. Luckily my office was facing the backside and the blast threw me away from the blown in window and I was fine again after some weeks.

  Anyway, one year has past and these are now only memories.

  I have visited the State Departement in Washington and seen the security messures in place there. It's really not comperable to Norway in any way, but Norway is living in the same world and I hope we can keep things as open as possible. Maybe in the future I can someday be as trusting again as I were when I was hacking Drupal back on the 22. July 2011.

  [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level:_Why_More_Equa...

• by Janteloven on 7/24/12, 11:46 AM

  This is far too simplistic an analysis. Making new security laws takes time, particularly in a positive-law tradition state like Norway. So it is too early to say what the effects will be. Without a doubt changes are being made to Norway's security apparatus, in fact the securitization of the Norwegian state is much talked about in policy circles here. There is talk of moving from a 'Prestige' set of policies to 'Security' as the guiding principle.

  I don't think any state could sit by and do nothing institutionally after such a terrible event. The problem in Norway is that whilst there is a self-congratulatory air about their response to Brevik - "love and democracy", they do not seem to want to engage in substantive debate about the planned changes to their security apparatus. To be honest they trust their government to do the right thing, even if that means extremely illiberal changes to the legal right of the person and the criminal system. Whether that trust is misplaced or not, and remember this is a highly consensual society, the Janteloven that Brevik has revealed will be controlled now via new laws - including new laws on using the Internet and making comments (Brevik was a big user of the internet and left comments on Norwegian websites).

• by meshko on 7/23/12, 5:29 PM

  With all due respect to Mr Schneier, I think this comparison is not 100% valid. There is a substantial difference between a terrorist threat from a lone mentally ill person and an organized group with ideology shared by thousands of people.

• by sebnukem2 on 7/23/12, 4:40 PM

  Hint: they didn't attack a random [oil-rich] country, nor did they subject their citizen to naked or carcinogenic scanners, which at the time didn't seem like a patriotic thing to do by American standards.

• by fromhet on 7/24/12, 6:26 AM

  I am Swedish, and Sweden is pretty close to Norway. We share culture, history and traditions. Many of my friends are Norwegians, and I've been there too.

  If the killer was not white and "Norwegian" (as we think a true norwegian should be), but rather a muslim extremist from Saudi Arabia, would they react the same way?

  Here in Scandinavia (and maybe everywhere) racism may seem alien but is never far away. I am sure, and saddened by the fact, that we would have reacted with hate and fear if the killer was not white, Norwegian and christian.

• by TomGullen on 7/23/12, 5:09 PM

  > pledged to do everything to ensure the country's core values were not undermined.

  Is this not a little dangerous surely if we take this over to USA where gun ownership is part of their core values?

• by jbjorge on 7/23/12, 11:22 PM

  Compared to the Oklahoma bombing and the recent theater shooting, Norway probably didn't act all that different, but from reading the source, this is one of the comments that captured the essence of why/how Norway stands out:

  "[]...What we Norwegians are afraid of is actually the situation you have in the US and UK either with Police or prosecutors with way too much power or CCTV cameras everywhere etc. We have been a peaceful society based on trust to each other for a long time, and intend to let that continue. I can only quote FDR: "The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself". Stoltenberg actually had to come with that statement. As doing the "US style fixit" would have backfired on him politically. Popular demand is different here, and that is the true power of Norway."

• by snambi on 7/23/12, 8:12 PM

  Terrorists want people not to continue their way of life. This is their main objective. They want people to live in fear. By voluntarily creating fear about terrorism, we make the terrorists goal easier.

• by jwoah12 on 7/24/12, 1:35 PM

  I think there are two reasons why the comparison of Norway's reaction to America's reaction is not completely valid. The first is the population difference (mentioned a lot already). The second is the timeframe. Norway had the benefit of a decade of reflection on the American response to 9/11. It has been fairly obvious that the international community believes the US overreacted.

• by gadders on 7/24/12, 8:52 AM

  Not really a proper comparison though, is it? The Norwegian massacres have more in common with the attack at the Batman Screening in Denver than they do with Al Qaeda/WTC etc

• by Tangaroa on 7/23/12, 8:31 PM

  A certain segment of Norwegians reacted to terrorism by being enthusiastically for it. These included the leaders of the Labour Party, including the leaders at the Labour Party's Utoya youth camp.

  http://zalmi.blogspot.com/2011/07/utoya-not-so-innocent-yout... http://www.debbieschlussel.com/40472/karma-2-norway-utoya-ca...

  This is a factor that seems to go unmentioned in all discussions of the Utoya massacre, but is necessary knowledge to understand the event in its entirety. It adds detail to Breivik's motive, and it raises the question of why there has been no condemnation of the Labour Party's support for similar massacres elsewhere being conducted on racial and religious lines so long as they happen far away and are done by a faction that the Party approves of.

  This is beside the point that Schneier makes, so I apologise for going off topic. To that point, the US overreacted (an understatement) and Norway faced little threat of further attacks. Norway did consider fudging its laws to give Breivik a life term as a mental inmate rather than the statutory limit of years as a prisoner, and that can be questioned as an expansion of security. More generally, no one in Norway could argue a need for greatly expanded security since the threat ended with Breivik's capture.

• by Holeinthewall on 7/23/12, 9:32 PM

  Maybe I fail to understand this, but we are comparing a country(USA) who (for whatever reason) is specifically targeted by terrorists on a whole different level than Norway.

  We are comparing an apple to a boiled egg : putting them in a microwave & trying to commend apple for not exploding !

  Forget legislative or leadership moronism at times, but blasting US for reacting in a way for something no other country has ever faced seems too harsh.