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[Jason Laughlin <jason AT jasonlaughlin.com>]

Maria Winslow wrote:

> "Can you imagine if another country set up a betting parlor so that people 
> could go in - and is sponsored by the government itself - people could go in 
> and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?" - SENATOR 
> BYRON DORGAN, Democrat of North Dakota, in disclosing that a Pentagon office 
> has proposed an online futures market in terror attacks.

Has nobody ever heard the term "deadpool" (http://www.stiffs.com/) or 
even "fucked company" (http://www.fuckedcompany.com)?

People make these bets all the time, all over the world.  The only 
difference is that this is being promulgated as a government intel tool 
instead of a game for bored punters.

Intel (the analysis of information, not the chipmaker) has always been 
an exercise in probability, not predetermination.  I believe it's 
already common wisdom that open markets and decentralized distributed 
groups will always be more successful than governments at picking 
winners and losers based on available information.  It's impossible for 
all the intel analysts in government to have their fingers on the pulse 
of every place in the world, so let the distributed political deadpool 
sort it out. 

The smart terrorists already profit from their predictions anyway.  
Wouldn't you expect them to bet on the performance of stock markets of 
countries where they're planning activity?  Don't you believe there are 
already some deep pockets to fund the bounties on assasinations anyway?  
This is simply bringing everything out in the open. 

Since more information is almost always better, and you can't keep your 
ear to the ground everywhere, I'd say this is a wonderful tool to alert 
officials in targeted countries when to increase security and for how 
long.  It's simply too honest for our rose-colored world. :-)

Jason