How Osama bin Laden and his ever-growing band of hirsute terrorists must be chuckling at the total shambles the APEC meeting is creating for great numbers of very cross residents. Al-Qaeda only needs to produce a little internet noise and Bush et al go into paranoid overdrive. If the security precautions for the APEC meeting are representative of how we are to live in the free world, I would like to resign and take my chances of becoming a victim of a terrorist attack at airports, cities hosting meetings of world leaders, sports fixtures – all activities ruined by over-the-top security. Terrorism is most successful in closed, paranoid societies such as ours is becoming.
M. H. MacKenzie-Orr Hughes (ACT), Member CLA (Sydney Morning Herald letter)