Slashdot Mirror
How Has Post-9/11 Legislation Affected You?
goldspider asks: "I hope this is received in the spirit it was intended in. In a recent Reuters article, the Internet as a whole has been referred to as 'collateral damage' of the U.S.-led War on Terrorism, because of the perceived loss in privacy and online rights as a result of post-9/11 legislation. I am curious to hear about some specific examples of how this legislation has personally or professionally affected the everyday lives of Slashdot readers."
I live a few miles from the Canadian border. I've been searched at least 20-30 times since September 11 going across to the Casinos in Windsor.
I'm sick of people saying "Oh, it doesn't bother me because it makes me feel safer." It DOES bother me, and NO, it DOESN'T make me feel safer. If someone wanted to get across the border with explosives or something, they're gonna do it and these stupid spot checks aren't prevent it.
My journal has hot
It's even worse when they say "So?"
I can't think of anything that has directly impacted me as of yet, but there are things about the past year that are very disturbing.
The biggest thing is that the government appears to be milking the 9/11 event for all it's worth in steps, releasing little tidbits of the story and new footage or new suspects found every time it wants to pass something through the houses without causing too much trouble with the public. Whip the public into a patriotic fervor of such levels that they willingly give up their freedoms in the name of staying safe and 'free of terrorists'.
Examples would be the Citizen Corps program that Bush started, it's effectively eastern european 'secret police' all over again, call in your neighbor for suspicious activity and get them put on surveilance and possibly carted away. Also the 'Patriot Act' and a few other bills that are aimed at increasing the governments power over individuals, all in the name of 'freedom'.
So have I felt any solid effects of anything since then? No. Can I see a picture start to form the way they've been manipulating (or attempting to) the public to push forward an agenda? Yes.
I am curious to hear about some specific examples of how this legislation has personally or professionally affected the everyday lives of Slashdot readers."
I'm sorry, but we've done too much to "commemorate" September 11. What's done is done, and let the dead bury the dead. We should not brand Arabs as guilty and evil. Bush did a poor job handling 9/11. He has killed too many innocent lives in Afghanistan. Iraq should not be an American target. Why don't we just...
*** Knock *** Knock *** Knock ***
"Hello? Yes, how can I help you? Yes, I am loyal to my country. What? Hey! Where are you taking me?!?"
---
How has it affected me? I'm worried about what I say in public; that's how it's affected me.
You think internet interests have been hit hard by post 9/11 legislation, trying being a private pilot these days. Despite the fact that this heinous act was conducted with big planes, its the little ones (like the Mooney I own) that are the first ones to be singled out when it comes time to hand down more restrictive measures. Three days after the attacks, the commercial airliners were back in the air. We had to wait a month, and then we were so awash in new and constantly changing regulations that it was impossible to keep up. Imagine taking off for a two hour flight and having the rules change while you're airborn. It was not unusual for a flight to be legal when you took off and illegal by the time it was over. The onslaught of new rules has been so bad that the FAA will run out of 4-digit numbers with which to label them. Yes, we are rapidly approaching federal notam (notice to airman) number 9999, at which point they will have to start numbering them at 0 again.
Remember when they announced they were restricting general aviation flights over nuclear power plants? You know what the official notice from the FAA said? The notice said we were forbidden from flying within 5 miles of a power plant, but then gave us nothing better than a vague description of where those plants were located! So we were told we had to remain clear (and if we didn't we would be intercepted by fighters and possibly shot down) but not told the locations we had to remain clear OF: just city names and vague directions, like "15 miles northwest of Anytown, IL". Even the pilot briefers we called on the phone--the very FAA representatives whose purpose in life is to tell pilots about notams--didn't understand the notices. Depending on who and when you would call you would get a different story about what was legal and what wasn't. And the ATC folks were just as confused. The tower at your departing airport would say your flight is okay, but the one at your destination would declare you in violation of some temporary flight restriction.
Many aviation related business went bankrupt and many more are teetering on the edge as a result of this. The airlines are bad off as we all know, but the small airports are in worse shape. And we are constantly under a cloud of threatened onerous increases in security for our airports: in most cases they are security measures that make no sense at all. Imagine owning property but being subject to a security check before you were allowed to go out to it.
Lots of folks just gave up flying, some temporarily and some permanently. I'm happy to sacrifice for my country, but the sacrifice should have some value. Most of what I've seen in the way of GA restrictions has been meaningless and senseless. And it's not really the restrictions themselves that bother me, but way in which they have been handled.
Mooney Guy N4074H
>
>But, unlike most people, I use an insulin pump. Most security people aren't keen on seeing someone with a small mechanical device and tubes attached to their body. Also, the insulin, needles, lancet, etc all get a good look through. I get stopped and have my bags inspected pretty much every time I go through. It's made me use air travel as a last resort.
(Be thankful they don't make you drink the insulin the way they did with those women and their breast milk :)
How has the legislation affected me? Will, since those drooling $5/hour morons are now drooling $10/hour federal employees, and as a result of my poor ability to take shit from dumb fucks who think that Congressional Medals of Honor, 2-inch GI Joe guns, and bottles of breast milk somehow constitute security threats, but who, as federal employees, can now throw me in jail for saying "WTF?" and can also no longer be fired when they exercise poor judgement, I call on everyone who's had it with the bullshit to...
Take the car.
No security goons. No having to remain silent while Guido dildoes your girlfriend's crotch or copping a feel off your mom's bra. (Why yes, it was women in underwire bras who hijacked four aircraft and destroyed the WTC and damaged the Pentagon, how could I have thought otherwise?)
Plug that laptop with 20G of MP3z into the stereo system and hear your favorite music over the engine noise. (Delayed by a traffic jam? No matter, the music sounds better when you're not doing 80 MPH just to keep up with traffic!)
Every six hours, pop into a small town and eat a nice hot meal. Screw McDonald's - find a random greasy spoon and eat with the locals. Or surrender to your lusts and have a dozen fresh Krispy Kremes.
The roadways are still free. You can get there in the same amount of time, with a lot less hassle, and you can see all the things you can't see stuck in a metal tube through a six-inch perspex square.
See the American countryside in air-conditioned comfort or lower that ragtop and let the breeze blow your hair as you take that twisty 2-lane blacktop through the national park instead of the boring interstate.
Finally, remind yourself as you stop by each "scenic viewpoint" and snap a few pics with your digicam that there are things about America that are too big for 19 Islamic terrorists - or even a Hill full of idiotic Congressmen and a TSA full of unaccountable bureaucrats and their $10/hour lackeys - to destroy.
I just thought I'd mention this one since it was a great article.
There was a letter to the editor in this quarter's issue of "2600."
In it, this guy was talking about how he was pulled off a plane just before it was about to leave the gate because a flight attendant saw him reading an article in 2600 about vulnerabilities in "Passport." She claimed he was reading a terrorist pamphlet.
The story of course ends with this guy being rescreened after talking to a few spooks and being let back on the plane. Of course, he said his flight was something like 2 hours late at this point.
Screw the new laws, I'm more worried about the new public attitudes that are letting this kind of shit go down without so much as a second thought.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
First of all, legislation after 9/11 has affected everyone here the same way that ALL legislation has affected us: by expanding government. The only way to pay for an expanded government is by raising taxes (at some level, either income taxes, payroll taxes, tariffs, sales taxes, or other government added fees).
This means less of MY money is available to spend on what I want to spend it on. Government steals from me to give to their friends (whether its defense contractors, or just the typical pork barrel recipients).
I read EVERY bill which passes through my Congressional Rep's hands (they're all visible on the web) and I have yet to see any bill yet that really "protects" us.
Now, my tax dollars are going to be used to help out Dubya's oil buddies when we go to war against Iraq, a country which has shown no provocation against me personally, neither through threats nor transgressions.
This is the biggest loss I think we all face. The loss of the right to use our hard earned dollars in ways WE INDIVIDUALLY want to. I could care less what my fellow Americans want to do with their money, but when they steal from me for their assinine programs, that's when I start getting angry.
Maybe soon I'll be saying "Costa Rica, here I come!"
Now, which is more difficult to bare? The inconvenience of the search, or another 9/11 style attack?
Definitely the 9/11 style attack. I constantly live in fear that terrorists will smuggle a Boeing 757 (fully loaded with jet fuel) into the US from Canada in their car trunk. They'll then go to a public library, and after checking out books like "How to Blow Up Big Buildings with Commercial Airliners", they'll rent out a fleet of crop-sprayers over the Internet, using PGP. They'll tow the 757 to an airstrip using this fleet of crop-sprayers (conserving the 757's fuel for a really big explosion). They'll then suspiciously mill around the plane for a while in plain view of the neighbors with signs up saying "Die America" and "Kablooie Empire State Building". After a while, they'll take off and ram into the Empire State building.
Fortunately, the federal government has forseen this chain of events, and taken prompt action to stop the terrorists at any point.
(My apologies: I couldn't manage to somehow work in a number of federal stupidities like the uncomfortably KGB-like and extremely expensive Office of Homeland Security and the stupid regs that made an aircraft attendant make my father break the apparently deadly file off his nail clippers in his toiletries kit.)
May we never see th
Every newscast seems to have a nightly "War On Terrorism" segment -- complete with a waving flag, Shrub's face, and dramatic music -- when nothing of any real import has happened that day. Pure sensationalism. Even bloody NPR (which I still enjoy, in spite of their narrow-minded stance on low-power radio) gets on my nerves these days with worthless coverage.
Look, shit happens all over the world. It just finally happened to us. Sure we may get a 15-second blurb when a crowd full of people are mamed in a bombing in Ireland, but someone dared to bloody the nose of the world's "greatest nation" and suddenly George Bush scratching his ass gets a 5-minute segment on ABC News! I sometimes wish Mr. bin Laden would humble this country again because most people still don't get it.
What has had far less conspicuous coverage is the fact that that Shrub Jr. and John Aschcroft have siezed far too much power than is comfortable than most people. The popular media doesn't want to appear anti-patriotic. Just look at what happened during the entire Bill Mahr (sp?) incident!
It's sad, really. If bin Laden's goal was to attack the heart of the USA (it's freedoms), then he succeeded extremely well. The ironic part is that he coerced us (that is, the US itself) to destroy some of those freedoms on his behalf.
I can no longer mail anthrax. This has effectively killed off one of my favorite pranks.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
In May, I travelled to Honolulu for a conference. I flew directly from Auckland to Honolulu. At Auckland, on the way out, I had to go through two sets of metal detectors and x-rays, as well as a search of my carry-on luggage (although that may have been because I was carrying a plastic poster roll). When I flew from Honolulu back to Auckland, there was just a single metal detector and a single x-ray, and no-one searched my poster roll, which I was still carrying. In short, the security for international flights in New Zealand was much better than in Hawaii.
For an Arab in the Middle East, some aspects of the internet have become frustrating. My credit card no longer receives the smooth transaction process pre-9/11. Half of all the purchases I tried to make through paypal, 2checkout, amazon, and several other vendors have been cancelled due to a "high fraud risk" because my credit card is from Saudi Arabia.
Last month, I tried e-mailing a friend who goes by the name of Jamal Bin-Laden (not related at all to the terrorists, he's not even Saudi Arabian). He replied not to MY e-mail but to a forwarded e-mail from my Bahraini ISP. Apparently they blocked the e-mail because of his name, read the contents, and when they saw I was only asking him to bring back some tiny M&M's from London (I'm addicted!) they forwarded it to him without even bothering to cover their tracks. There goes online privacy for you.
And on a related note, I had to cancel my post-grad plans to study in New York after all my Arab friends there came back. Let's just say people weren't very nice to them.
While this might have nothing to do with American legislation, it's somewhat ironic to see how 9/11 effected everyone negatively, Americans & Terr^H^H^H^HArabs alike.
May the victims of 9/11, the starved to death children of Iraq, and online rights all rest in peace.
Am I afraid of police throwing me in jail without access to a lawyer or a trial? A little bit. In any repressive society, you learn to adapt, and you hope you aren't the one singled out for special treatment. You have to be realistic about risks, though. I'm more likely to be killed in a car accident than tortured by police, and I'm more likely to be tortured by police than killed by a terrorist. If you are an active supporter of Bush's perpetual war and are a white christian, then you're probably more likely to die at the hands of a terrorist than the police, but more likely to drown in your bathtub than either.
But the effects of repression go much further than the direct victims. As long as repression against voting-rights activists in the South was successful, all blacks in the South had suffer the daily minor humilations of being second class citizens, as well as make less money for more work due to discrimination and greater power inbalance at work. The most visible effects of the racist violence during the civil rights movement were the bloody bodies and smouldering buildings, but you can bet that millions of blacks had to suffer inferior schools, longer work hours, less access to health care, etc.
Currently, the repression we are seeing benefits anyone with power. For example, even if there isn't a strike on the west-coast docks, the dock workers will be forced to accept less at the bargaining table due to Bush's threat to replace dock workers with soldiers during a strike. This sort of thing will also have a chilling effect for anyone group of workers daring to stand up for themselves. And if some workers must accept less pay and benefits, it has a way of filtering out to the rest of society, making us all work longer for less.
Think back to the days of the Soviet Union after Stalin. There were some high-profile cases of political prisoners, but it wasn't necessary to imprison millions to keep everyone in check. Or China after the massacre at Tiananmen square -- a few thousand were killed and probably a few thousand imprisoned, and that was enough to seriously impact a social movement that could have improved the lives of over a billion people. Sure, 99.999% weren't affected directly by the Chinese repression, but that's more an explanation of why the Chinese repression was successful than a justification for why it was acceptable.
I went through airline security recently and it is a joke. And absolute joke. I've concluded that it's just a placebo to make most ignorant people feel better. Why? Well here are a few things.
When I was bringing my bag on the airline, I was checked 3 times. Getting onto every flight and my connecting flights. Somehow I triggered a "possible terrorist" flag and had people hand check my luggage. Maybe it was my scruffy beard?
Anyways when they checked my carry on luggage they ran it through an Xray. They made me take my trekking poles out to see what they were (they are poles for hiking). They didn't care about the pot that showed up as a big grey cylinder in the middle of my pack.
For my carry on luggage I had a camera lens in a 1Liter drink cooler. It was in there because it's soft to keep it from getting damaged. They never opened it up. I can think of all kinds of stuff to put in there... They never once checked the carry on bag itself. Couldn't something be hidden in the liner of the bag?
Coming back I had to have my checkon bag checked again, but this airport didn't have any xray machines. They had to hand check everything. I gave the guy my bag, he opened it up and saw a backpack filled with stuff. He asked me "Is this all hiking gear?". I said yes and he just zipped it up and put it on the belt to go into the plane. Luckily that backpack has 75liters of gear in it and not explosives. I was thinking on the whole flight back:
"Sir is this all camping gear in this backpack?"
"No it's approximately 75Liters of C4."
"Hmmm let me check my manual here... explosives, dynamite, C4. Sorry sir but you can't bring C4 on the plane. You must be an Al Queda terrorist?"
"Why yes I am, I guess you caught me. Take me in."
If a terrorist wants to bring something on the plane, it's going to get on the plane. The people who setup these security checkpoints are either:
A. Ignorant.
B. Setting up a Placebo
C. Making a boost in their political career.
D. All of the above.
You choose.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Case in point.
I was on an Amtrak train to Washington, DC. I walked down the corridor, down the steps, onto the train. I hung out in my chair, and when I was asked for my ticket, I said, 'I'd like to buy one please.' We were already well on our way, and I'd bought tickets before on the train, not a big deal, there's like a three dollar surcharge or something.
Nope.
I was informed that I needed to get off of the train in Wilmington, purchase a ticket, and wait for the NEXT train to come by. This made me kinda late, and extremely irritated.
I asked why I had to get off of the train.
I was told that company policy had changed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, I had to present photo ID, buy a ticket, and get on the train, I'm not allowed on the train without a ticket.
I was already on the train. It was already moving. It was already about 30 miles out of Philadelphia. Let me make this point very clear. I WAS ALREADY ON THE TRAIN.
I said to the guy, 'I'm already on the train. It's already moving.' He said I still needed to get off the train at the next stop, buy a ticket, and wait for the next train.
I looked him square in the face and said, "Let's say I was a suicidal bomber or a terrorist, and I wanted to kill people or blow up the train. I could do it if I wanted to, because I am ALREADY ON THE TRAIN."
"We don't like to hear things like that, sir."
Sigh.
I was already on the train. It was already moving. I sure hope everyone on that train felt safe.
Emmett
I got my license last july. But since I live near Seattle, I was unable to fly for months because the class B airspace over the area was extended to the ground and required instrument clearance.
I havent flown as Pilot in Command since.
I did however cross the country with my brother who is a commercial pilot, and we both got lots of flak by airport security for just being around the planes (our own plane!) by the FAA security guards. It is quite unpleasant to have to explain to every block-headed idiot in a uniform that yes, that is my plane, yes, I am a pilot yada yada yada.
In order to get a pre-flight briefing, you are required to listen to a statement about suspicious people and terrorism. Its is stupid and inane and a real grind to listen to day in and day out.
When planning our flights, we have to pay special attention to TFRs (temporary flight restrictions) or we can lose our licenses. There are several in the Seattle area which have never been lifted since Sept 11; visual flight rules cannot fly into these areas. This is a total joke since the terrorists planes were jumbo jets flying instrument rules, and those are still allowed everywhere.
Has anyone else seen the Anti-Drug commercials saying that by buying drugs we help terrorists. This angers me since every sack I ever bought has been straight from Mexico.
Yup. And do you know what the worst thing is?
Even discussing this sort of stuff can get one branded as "unpatriotic" or "insensitive". Having worked in the media , it was clear that a HUGE chilling effect came over it, even over here in australia.
Whereas we SHOULD ask questions like "Hey , is this interference in the mid east part of the cause of S/11. Why where we funding the taliban?", we havent been asking that, because any given question can be answered with "SHH! WHERE FIGHTING TERRORISTS! BOW YOUR HEAD IN SHAME!"
And the cycle goes on... And get's nuttier too. Questioning govt anti-hacker legislation can get one branded as "un-patriotic". ditto for fcking phone tapping legislation, drug legislation, camp X-ray legislation..... Any questioning is..... "unpatriotic"
So maybe we should give up , hey guys?... Freedom of speech is dead in the water. MIA.
Those founding fathers would not be impressed with a president who claims "There should be limits to freedom". (Rant ends here)
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Actually, not all of them did openly. Several refused to answer the pertinent question "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"
Still, anyone labeled a "Communist" was blacklisted. Pressure was exerted on filmmakers, studios and others and those so labeled frequently never worked again. Careers were destroyed, not on proof of criminal activity, but on expression of political belief. Political speech was supressed and persecuted.
I'm not talking "the advocation of the violent overthrow of the Government and Constitution", but expressions of sympathy or even simple ambivalence.
"...when that expression presents a clear and present danger to the continued prosperity of the United States as both the body politic and the people, actions such as McCarthy's were totally justified."
Where in the Constitution does it say that? Until Congress declares War -- which didn't happen then and hasn't now -- or you are a convicted felon, the rights of Citizens are not set aside for convenience.
The Government of the United States is stronger than that. Unlike China, the U.S.S.R. and others, we tolerate dissent and are not threatened by it.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Check it out:
http://www.lp.org/action/files/!drugwar.pdf
Just flew into San Francisco this afterneoon and got searched *four* times. Now, there is nothing stange about that, becuase I flew one-way and had a lot of connections (got searched at each connection). The strange thing is this: I make a really spicy Habenero sauce, and just for fun, I carry it in a sealed medical waste bag complete with the biohazard flowers and multiple warnings not to open it. Didn't faze the inspectors one bit... Now my sewing kit, on the other hand, that instantly got them into a tizzy and it had to be thrown away.
So, in case you were unclear on the concept of safety in America:
Tiny sewing scissors with a blade capable of possibly cutting paper in about three-four tries - DANGEROUS
Mysterious biohazard bag containing unidentified red goo - NO PROBLEM
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
You're a former penal colony. Who cares what the genocidal, racist country of Australia thinks? Take care of the aborigines before you dare to type a single criticism of the world's greatest country.
;- "The #1 threat to world peace in the world today". The USA is not loved. Get over it. It's tolerated, and only because everyones fucking scared of it. At the moment it's led by a psycopathic nutter who didn't get in on a popular vote, who has signed the death orders of hundreds of his fellow countryman and seems hell bent on Killing any country that disagrees with it. Actually dude I'll give you a hint;- most of the world is terrified of the US and believe the world is in big fucking danger, and that's not from terrorists, it's from the US.
Ok, let's get one thing straight. (1)Like america , Australia treats it's aboriginals like shit. I'm not proud of it, and I hope the fuck you aren't proud of your country ppreceeding over the genocide of the 200 nations. Secondly, FOR FUCK SAKE THE USA IS NOT THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. For instance many defence analysists have refered to the USA as , and I quote
If the USA's Middle East policies were the "cause" of 9-11, what is the cause of Islamic Terrorism in Kashmir, the former USSR, Malaysia, Indonesia, The Phillipines, Sudan, etc, etc, etc?
The problem is ISLAMIC TERRORISM, not the USA defending the Jews that have lived in the Middle East since before there was any such thing as Islam.
Whatever...... Just because theres overwhelming evidence that the US fucked up by installing Sadam Husain & the Taliban into power, it's OK, because USA #1 USA #1
Remember, if it weren't for the USA and the USSR most of the world would be speaking either German or Japanese today.
Oh yeah.. by the way I actually like americans, I just get wild when they put my country down and try to tell the world they are less then them. And I apologise to any americans out there, it's not really the best day for these sort of arguments, but a spades a spade, and I gotta call it.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
And if you are foolish enough to think that these so-called "security" measures are somehow "worth it," I've got a large bridge to sell you. Tell me, how many miles per year do you travel by automobile? Do you have any idea how much more likely you are to be killed by a car wreck than by a terrorist? The cold, hard fact of the matter is that majority of Americans are quite willing to make risk/convenience trade-offs on a daily basis which display far less risk aversion than would be needed to justify the massive inconvenience of current airport security measures. Alas, mention the "T-word," and all sanity flees the room on wings of silver. "If even one terrorist is stopped," we are told, "any price is worth it!" But this is folly, and should be identified as such. We don't think this way when purchasing insurance, and we surely should not do so when purchasing questionable security with our valuable time, freedom, and money.
I for one, will take chances for my freedom -- and, yes, for my convenience as well. Ironically, so will virtually everyone else, so long as the decision isn't framed in terms of a "terrorist threat."
-Carter
Why? Well back when I was 20 I was in the Marines, and I was against the gulf war. I was pretty vocal about it (freedom of speech) and that got me a lot of flack from the military (that's clear). I got in a discussion with some other guys during lunch and they were telling me "we gotta kill S.H. because he violated this and this international law, yadda yadda". I told them if we were going to kill violaters of international law, we would have to start with Bush for Panama. Clearly a rhetorical argument.
Still, the Secret service was called, and I spent the night in a holding cell until my lawer came. I had to be photographed, psychoanalyzed, get a handwriting analyses, and had my background and family checked. But they had to let me go, becuase I was able to talk to a lawyer and he said "c'mon guys, it's obvious these charges are a bunch of shit". That happened a lot in those days, me getting arrested for a day and released without trial because the charges were just meaningless. They did this to hassle me and to keep me from expressing my opinion to people who might listen and change theirs. Noboddy, and I emphasize, Nobody, really thought I had threatened the presidents life. It was just a charade.
What's changed? Now they don't have to let me speak with my lawyer, and they can keep me indefinately. That has terrorized me!
I'm from a former communist country and this whole thing makes me unconfotable. Not the terrorist, but recognizing the methods the US goverment is using. They just point to a such a familiar direction. Although I believe they will never manage to reach anything near the shit we had here, they still have quite a lot of inertia and damage is getting bigger every day.
.snaciremA eht uoY
Remember, of all the emotions FEAR is the most difficult to get rid of.
Here is my own little experiance of this. Even a dosen years after the communism fell, I still get nervous when crossing a border to a neighbouring country. And now it only takes me showing about enough passports or IDs for all the passingers in my car to the border cop (they usually don't check them). This is a pure remnant from when I was a kid and had experienced border crossings in a tense atmosphere.
Guess who were the people in former communist counties made affraid of before being told to act patriotic and encouraged to spy on each other?
In the 80's every press article about drugs rose straight to the front page to give me the impression that I'm surrounded by drug dealers. In the 90's every press article about school violence rose straight to the front page to give me the impression that I'm surrounded by homicidal teenagers. There was a brief break in there somewhere where I was scared OJ was going to kill me. Now we're in the naughts or whatever the hell you want to call it, and every press article about terrorism rises straight to the front page to give me the impression that I'm surrounded by terrorists.
It's all crap. One incredibly shocking event later (9/11, colombine... what was the news maker in the drug war? probably stars dying from drugs or the violence in Columbia) and the press does a Gilligans Island bit and they go from a three hour story to a multi-year obsession with the same topic. If you want to see flocking behavior, don't watch the birds, watch the press. Canada and the US had about the same levels of drug use in the 80's, but it was first on the American list of problems and somewhere in the twenties for Canada. Why? The press. Or maybe the Canadians have some good sense.
The ironic thing is that if you're reading for content, reading to try to figure out major trends in the world, the press was more informative about terrorism before 9/11 than after. Before 9/11, genuinely important terrorism-related news was the only news that would make the papers. If you saw terrorism in the news, it was a big deal - the government had thwarted something major or there had been an embassy bombing. World changing stuff. Now, if it has a terrorism angle it's front page material - even if the angle is something like "a man who might be a terrorist might have been caught at the airport. he might have had a nail file. there might be more news at 11." By and large each terrorism story is space filler in a space that has a proverbial "reserved for terrorism related news, regardless of if there's news or not" stamp on it.
It's like wheat and chaff. When it comes to terrorism, the press prints both these days.
Oh, well. At least the fact that our civil liberties are being used like an inflatable sex toy is coming to light. And, who knows? Five years down the road, something else Really Bad will happen and the press will be obsessed with something else. We should have a betting pool on the next big press fad. Personally, I'm predicting it'll be mega-storms caused by climate change. Some kind of giant hurricaine will level a nation to the dirt, and the press will drop terrorism like yesterday's news - which it already is.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)