Dick Cheney Had Implanted Defibrillator Altered To Prevent Terrorist Attack 242
An anonymous reader writes "According to the Washington Post, 'Former Vice President Dick Cheney says he once feared that terrorists could use the electrical device that had been implanted near his heart to kill him and had his doctor disable its wireless function. Cheney has a history of heart trouble, suffering the first of five heart attacks at age 37. ... In an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes, Cheney says doctors replaced an implanted defibrillator near his heart in 2007. The device can detect irregular heartbeats and control them with electrical jolts. Cheney says that he and his doctor, cardiologist Jonathan Reiner, turned off the device's wireless function in case a terrorist tried to send his heart a fatal shock.' More at CBS News."
Terrorist? (Score:2, Insightful)
How can anyone who kills Dick Cheney be a terrorist?
Re:Terrorist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Terror is a strategy, not a value judgment.
Don't let the propagandists redefine words to suit their purposes.
I'd much rather be terrorised from time to time - indeed, England was for quite a while, and my father almost got killed in one bomb blast - than be aerial bombarded back to the Middle Ages.
Re:Evil, powerful men have enemies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Evil, powerful men have enemies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, anyone who understands how fragile the human body is should be terrified of walking outdoors, etc.
Murders don't happen all the time simply because most people aren't psychopathic cunts. But, in Cheney's case, it takes one to know one.
Paranoid? Nope, he's merely one noid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, given Cheney's historical level of paranoia (this is nothing compared to some of his hijinks as SECNAV), I can TOTALLY see Cheney not understanding something and therefore assuming it's going to be used by people out to get him. Both "not understanding something" and "worried about trivial crap" are WELL within Cheney's persona. Having said that, whose wise idea was it to make a defibrilator that can be remotely accessed wirelessly in the first place? If nerd history has taught us anything, it's vulnerable shit eventually gets broken into, and wireless protocols are by definition vulnerable.
Re:Evil, powerful men have enemies. (Score:5, Insightful)
By attacking America on 9/11, Al Qaeda hoped to lure America into a foolish overreaction that would alienate the West from the Islamic world, weaken America's will, and help spread Al Qaeda's message of extremism and violence. Few people helped them achieve these goals more than Dick Cheney did. So why would they want to kill him?
Re:It's a weird experience (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you crinkle in fear each time a car comes at you from the opposite direction? Every time you get on a plane?
Lots of potentially dangerous actions in your life, many other people can terminate it accidentally or on purpose. Hell, that dodgy iPhone charger you bought off of eBay - do you really trust it?
Re:Terrorist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely. There is only "war" of different kinds and at varying levels.
"Terror" is pretty effective though. Nations which lose hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed to socially acceptable causes (smoking, obesity, auto crashes) can easily be terrified into implementing structurally toxic changes by the trivial loss of a few thousand killed in one small location. I wouldn't want to be under a massive bombardment either, but once upon a time nations knew they could take massive casualties yet not only survive but triumph.
Give the Mamayev Kurgan monument some thought. Stalingrad cost more Soviet dead than the US lost in all its wars, but they refused to lose. Commies or not, they had balls.
Danger still there (Score:4, Insightful)
Disabling wifi doesn't remove the danger. Directed energy weapons, like RF guns, can still target and disrupt the device in various ways since it contains electronics.
Re:It's a weird experience (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you crinkle in fear each time a car comes at you from the opposite direction? Every time you get on a plane?
Lots of potentially dangerous actions in your life, many other people can terminate it accidentally or on purpose.
At least if a car going the opposite direction crashes into you, or the airplane pilot crashes the plane their life and property is in serious jeapordy as well.
Re:Will not happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Killing a politician with subtle electronic sabotage is not appealing to terrorists. It is not dramatic. It is quiet. Terrorists would rather blow a city block with TNT to kill a politician. Killing somebody using defibrillator suits spies or other government agents.
And my guess is that that is what he was really worried about.
Re:Evil, powerful men have enemies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Paranoid? Nope, he's merely one noid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably someone who thought that sticking a cable through your chest to change the things configuration is an even worse idea.
Re:Terrorist? (Score:4, Insightful)
Stalingrad cost more Soviet dead than the US lost in all its wars, but they refused to lose. Commies or not, they had balls.
Well, in essence, it was Hitler's fault. The original plan was to take the Ural oil fields and the German machine was unstoppable it doing it - until Hitler decided on a detour to take Stalingrad on the way (he thought it would destroy the Russian hearts and resistance) ~ bad move.
If he didn't do the detour, I think the outcome of WWII would have been different.
Mind you, that doesn't take away what the people of Stalingrad did to resist and destroy the German eastern front.
Re:Terrorist? (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed: such a targetted attack would only be "terrorism" when the word is redefined by propagandists.
Re:Evil, powerful men have enemies. (Score:1, Insightful)
The status quo seemed to be that as the rest of the world was progressing towards democratic governments, the Middle East (apart from Israel) would be the sole remaining black hole for democracy and human rights
If you truly believe that you reveal complete arrogance about the situation in the Middle East. First of all, Israel is conducting large scale state terrorism basically since it exists. Second, some of the worst dictators in the Middle East have been explicitly supported by the US government, some of them even rose to power with direct support by the CIA, and some of them are still being massively supported by the US. Take a look at Saudi Arabia. What currently happens in Egypt is yet another repetition of the same old story as well: The US is actively backing a "benevolent" military dictatorship by overthrowing a democratically elected government.
I have no sympathy for regligious fundamentalism of any kind, but it really doesn't take rocket science to realize what is going on and why these terrorist movements could arise in the first place. Hint: They have not much to do with religion at all, the latter is nothing more than a recruiting tool for them.
Also, it would perhaps also be a good idea to get a clue at the size the "islamic world" you're talking about, because you talk an awful lot as if it was confined to the Middle East.
In summary, get a fucking idea what your talking about.