Sunday, September 22, 2013

Meet The Counterterrorism Specialist Who Is Also A Billionaire

Photo: Nathan Myhrvold. Wikipedia

Meet The Microsoft Billionaire Who's Trying to Reboot U.S. Counterterrorism -- Shane Harris, Foreign Policy

Nathan Myhrvold's a king of computer science, intellectual property, and extreme food. Can he teach Washington how to fight bad guys too?

Add to Nathan Myhrvold's already eclectic résumé -- which includes ex-chief technology officer of Microsoft, co-founder of one of the world's largest patent-holding firms, and author of a $625 cookbook -- a new credit: terrorism expert.

Myhrvold, a famous autodidact, recently published a 33-page paper that he rousingly calls, "Strategic Terrorism: A Call to Action." The core of his argument is easy enough to understand, and probably true: The United States is more focused on stopping a guy who blows up an airplane and kills 300 people than on a guy who intentionally spreads smallpox and kills 300,000.

"In my estimation, the U.S. government, although well-meaning, is unable to protect us from the greatest threats we face," Myhrvold writes. "[M]odern technology can provide small groups of people with much greater lethality than ever before. We now have to worry that private parties might gain access to weapons that are as destructive as -- or possibly even more destructive than -- those held by any nation-state."

Myhrvold to Washington: National security … you're doin' it wrong.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: His concerns are also mine .... the U.S. has forgotten what catastrophic terrorism is all about. His 33-page paper "Strategic Terrorism: A Call to Action" can be read here.

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