Bombs and stones may break our bones but our web-site...

Someone created a website, www.werenotafraid.com, as a response to the latest terrorist attack in London. Now do-gooders on both sides of the Atlantic are rushing to post pictures of themselves, their pooches, their parents and kids...all with the headline "We're not afraid."

I, too, paused with a sentimental, yet defiant smile until I thought about folly of this symbolic stunt. First, do terrorists really care if we post our pictures on a web site? Perhaps they will be hunkered down in their safe house, wearing their FREE SADAM t-shirts when they'll see the Jeanie Moss piece on CNN. They'll gasp in horror, pop open their laptops and log on (using their neighbor's wireless signal). They'll see pages and pages of defiant Brits and Americans boasting that they aren't afraid, curse Allah that the infidels have responded in such an unexpectedly strong fashion, and immediately convert to Christianity. Or... they'll chuckle and strap another five pound bag of fertilizer on the newest recruit and wait.

What makes the site even more ridiculous is that it simply isn't true. We ARE afraid. Terrorists strike a continent away, and we immediately ratchet up the terror alert to Orange. Up until last week, your bladder could explode during the first 30 minutes leaving from or last 30 minutes arriving to Washington's Reagan National Airport, but your fanny could not leave the seat. If so, you'd be gang tackled by all the undercover marshals and perp walked to the nearest federal facility.

Try and board a plane without stripping down to your bare feet lately? Now they want to do the same thing for Amtrak trains. You don't even have to travel to feel the effects. The federal government wants to be able to see all the books you check out of the local library, as well as the web sites you've visited.

All this doesn't sound like the reaction of people who aren't afraid, and we aren't fooling the terrorists by emailing our pictures in. We seem to be fascinated with symbolic feel-good gestures: wearing the flag pins on our lapels, the yellow ribbon magnet on our cars, and now posting our pictures on a web site. If we could only get that kind of support to change the policies that make us such attractive targets.