Terror to the left of us, terror to the right

I noticed a little article in the Canberra Times (22 Jan 2006, p.9) today reporting on the number of calls made to the National Security Hotline. The figures interested me. Apparently there have been 71,000 calls since the hotline was set up in 2002, of which Philip Ruddock says 37,000 were "useful". Ruddock told a Young Liberals conference that "the information had increased the authorities' understanding of the threats facing Australia" (quote from the article, not necessarily from PR).

It got me thinking. These seem pretty big numbers. Presumably, the hotline is like a call centre, and any really serious calls would be followed up by agents, and would not lead to further stats for the hotline. So, there will be some multiple calls, but not too many. I stand to be corrected on this - it's an assumption. And assuming each call is about one person (or group), and the call wasn't repeated, and also that there aren't multiple calls about one person (or group), that gives us one report for every 281 Australians, and an "interesting call" for every 540 Australians. One in 540 Australians a terrorist? That suggests there are 555 terrorists in Canberra. Wow.

Another way to look at it is with respect to the number of Australians arraigned on issues of terrorism. There were 14 arrested a few months ago, and I didn't think there were any others - at least not known to the public (it's quite possible that someone is taken by ASIO these days, and we would never know, as it's illegal for family or friends, even journalists, to announce it). So the figures are - 2,642 reports per terrorist. We must have a very observant population. Someone's obviously doing their share for me. Or maybe I'm being reported for this blog.

This is all based on some precarious assumptions, but the picture it gives of Australia is scary - we must be riddled with terrorists. I assume one day we will be bombed somewhere, but with so many evil ones amongst us, it should have happened numerous times already.

But then, maybe we're just riddled with fear, and it'll all be OK in the end.