POINTS is a privately-funded
public resource dealing with personal, family and community security in an age of terrorism and
political/social/religious violence.
These pages and the links found here are designed to serve the public in general, and those
people with a need to know--including academicians, security personnel, risk managers,
researchers, and media reporters. We provide a gateway access to a variety of information
sources on varied topics. The pages were created with the idea of managing information
overload while providing access to key information, either on our own server or through links.
Those readers who have visited here prior to "9/11" will probably notice many changes. In the
aftermath of those events we removed most of the site in order to allow ourselves time to
evaluate the material, what might be useful to the terrorists, and what is valuable or usable by
members of the general public, including those with a special, and reasonable, interest in the
subject of insurgency. We noted the comments of readers who wrote us and decided that one
could not and should not remove everything from public view that MIGHT be useful to
an enemy. After the reported shoebomb attempt during a flight over the Atlantic it was easy to
see that a web page teaching someone how to strike a match WOULD -- no might about it
-
- have been useful to those who would attack us. The question then became: What can we
put up that would be useful for Americans to know? Ignorance is not a virtue.
We are carefully recrafting these pages to answer those questions. We are at the start of that
process. If you have an idea of what you would like to see, please share those comments with
us.
Some of the material included here was written and developed by us. In other cases we have
chosen to link to sites of others who we believe they have specialized information or
strongly-held beliefs that may be useful or shed light on a particular aspect of insurgency,
protest or socio-political violence. In some cases we felt documents were important enough to
make certain that the material did not just disappear into the ether; in those cases we have
copied the document to our server.
Since this is a living document ongoing changes are being made to the material.
The views represented here, and those presented in the links included here, do not
necessarily--and in a significant number of cases definitely do not--reflect those held by the
managers of the POINTS Project. The inclusion of a particular document or a link should not be
construed as an endorsement of the data or viewpoint. We include some material here simply for
the viewpoint expressed, or the world view that underlies it. We are certain that part of the
material will be offensive to some. Some offends us. But this is an information site which must
serve the needs of a large number of people, many of whom have competing needs and beliefs.
Even incorrect and blatantly false information may be important to some. Those people who
are angered or offended by the contents would do well to point their browsers elsewhere; there
is no requirement that anyone visit this site.
We welcome all well-intentioned suggestions and comments, however we will not and do not
publicly or privately debate issues of content or the many varied political, social and religious
viewpoints contained in these pages. Our goal here is to be eclectic in outlook, giving access
to a variety of opinions and fact-based research. The search for truth implies that it may well
be hidden in a thicket of misinformation.
