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Mgoweqp's List: 9-11
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Sep 19, 11
The blueprint, titled "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States," mentions other sorts of terrorism, but its focus is on that fueled by Islamic extremism (though it doesn't use that term). Its recommendation is that the federal government engage in "strengthening community partnerships and preventing violent extremism … as a facilitator, convener, and source of information."
The notion is that community initiatives can help ameliorate extremism among young men who might be attracted to the teachings of Al Qaeda. The report draws an analogy with three other community initiatives: anti-gang efforts; liaisons between community groups and the federal government in connection with anti-terrorism efforts; and the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative designed to prevent school violence and drug abuse. In the schools program, the report notes, participating school districts must address violence and substance abuse. -
Sep 19, 11
Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, FBI Director Robert Mueller issued a memo to his field offices detailing "one set of priorities" for the agency: Stop the next terrorist attack. This directive marked a new "preemptive" style of law enforcement that has since become the hallmark of our domestic front in the war against terrorism.
Under this system, catching an actual terrorist would constitute a failure because the perpetrators would have committed the act. Instead, we are in effect seeking "pre-terrorists" — individuals whose intentions, more than their actions, constitute the primary threat.
Taking stock of the major "terrorist" prosecutions that this approach has yielded, however, it's not at all clear we're safer from another attack.-
Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, FBI Director Robert Mueller issued a memo to his field offices detailing "one set of priorities" for the agency: Stop the next terrorist attack. This directive marked a new "preemptive" style of law enforcement that has since become the hallmark of our domestic front in the war against terrorism.
Under this system, catching an actual terrorist would constitute a failure because the perpetrators would have committed the act. Instead, we are in effect seeking "pre-terrorists" — individuals whose intentions, more than their actions, constitute the primary threat.
Taking stock of the major "terrorist" prosecutions that this approach has yielded, however, it's not at all clear we're safer from another attack.
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Sep 19, 11
Ten years ago, before 9/11 made terrorism our national preoccupation, the agencies that now make up the Department of Homeland Security spent about $22 billion a year on public safety and emergency management. Now Homeland Security is the third-biggest department in the federal government, with more than 230,000 employees and a budget of $55 billion a year.
Before 9/11, the United States spent about $30 billion a year on its civilian intelligence agencies; today, such spending has nearly doubled to about $55 billion, more than the entire State Department budget. Add in spending on military intelligence, and the intelligence budget comes to more than $80 billion.
How much additional security have we gained from all that spending? It's impossible to say.-
Ten years ago, before 9/11 made terrorism our national preoccupation, the agencies that now make up the Department of Homeland Security spent about $22 billion a year on public safety and emergency management. Now Homeland Security is the third-biggest department in the federal government, with more than 230,000 employees and a budget of $55 billion a year.
Before 9/11, the United States spent about $30 billion a year on its civilian intelligence agencies; today, such spending has nearly doubled to about $55 billion, more than the entire State Department budget. Add in spending on military intelligence, and the intelligence budget comes to more than $80 billion.
How much additional security have we gained from all that spending? It's impossible to say.
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Sep 19, 11
Today, Americans don't seem to know what to feel. We both grouse about and take comfort in the security screenings that get tweaked every year or so. We live with the fear of a terrorist attack as resignedly as Californians live with the fear of an epic earthquake. It's bound to happen one day, but who knows where or when?
In the weeks after 9/11, government officials said it wasn't a matter of if there would be another attack in this country, it was a matter of when. But in 2011, most Americans ignore that prophecy. Even warnings such as last week's "specific, credible but unconfirmed" threat cause general anxiety but are ignored in practice by many. We show up at airports, hauling our children and pets and 3-ounce bottles of shampoo, more afraid of spilling liquids in luggage than dying on planes. We push our trepidation to the backs of our minds, and board. And 10 years after two skyscrapers were destroyed and the Pentagon was struck in acts of unimagined terror, that resilience is not a bad thing to have rebuilt. -
Sep 19, 11
As the nation looks back today, and rightly honors those who lost their lives, we'd urge Americans — and especially lawmakers — to put a little thought into looking forward too. Today, the number of people killed annually by Muslim terrorists outside war zones is roughly equal to the number who die in bathtub accidents, according to Ohio State University professor John Mueller, who has written extensively on terrorism risks and expenditures. That doesn't mean fighting terrorism should no longer be a priority, but it does mean we need to be sure that we balance it rationally with other priorities that are equally important.
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As the nation looks back today, and rightly honors those who lost their lives, we'd urge Americans — and especially lawmakers — to put a little thought into looking forward too. Today, the number of people killed annually by Muslim terrorists outside war zones is roughly equal to the number who die in bathtub accidents, according to Ohio State University professor John Mueller, who has written extensively on terrorism risks and expenditures. That doesn't mean fighting terrorism should no longer be a priority, but it does mean we need to be sure that we balance it rationally with other priorities that are equally important.
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Sep 19, 11
About the only thing that Washington and the nation can seem to manage these days are monuments—we are monument mad, anniversary obsessed. Which leads us to Ground Zero, the tenth anniversary. This year, put your hand on your heart for all who were lost, for all we have lost, then turn from this place and look at it no more, and see what our nation has become.
"The lust for retaliation traditionally outstrips precision in identifying the actual assailant," Cockburn wrote in September 2001 ("The Next Casualty: Bill of Rights?"). "The targets abroad will be all the usual suspects -- the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, who started off as creatures of U.S. intelligence. The target at home will be the Bill of Rights."-
"The lust for retaliation traditionally outstrips precision in identifying the actual assailant," Cockburn wrote in September 2001 ("The Next Casualty: Bill of Rights?"). "The targets abroad will be all the usual suspects -- the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, who started off as creatures of U.S. intelligence. The target at home will be the Bill of Rights."
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Of course it didn't take 9/11 to give the Bill of Rights a battering. It is always under duress and erosion. Where there's emergency, there's opportunity for the enemies of freedom. The Patriot Act, passed in October 2001 and periodically renewed in most of its essentials in the Bush and Obama years, kicked new holes in at least six of our Bill of Rights protections.
The government can search and seize citizens' papers and effects without probable cause, spy on their electronic communications, and has, amid ongoing court battles on the issue, eavesdropped on their conversations without a warrant. Goodbye to the right to a speedy public trial with assistance of counsel. Welcome indefinite incarceration without charges, denial of the assistance of legal counsel and of the right to confront witnesses or even have a trial. Until beaten back by the courts, the Patriot Act gave a sound whack at the 1st Amendment, too, since the government could now prosecute librarians or keepers of any records if they told anyone the government had subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.
Let's not forget that a suspect may be in no position to do any confronting or waiting for trial since American citizens deemed a threat to their country can be extrajudicially and summarily executed by order of the president, with the reasons for the order shielded from the light of day as "state secrets". That takes us back to the bills of attainder the Framers expressly banned in Article One of the U.S. Constitution, about as far from the Bill of Rights as you can get. We can thank the War on Terror, launched after 9/11, for it.
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