Mission Statement

If any article sums up the philosophy of this blog and my feelings about the War on Terror, it's this excellent one by Spencer Ackerman, published on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It's called "How to Beat Terrorism: Refuse to Be Terrorized."

Ten years ago today, 2,996 people were murdered, unleashing a pair of destructive, mutually reinforcing trends. To prove their relevance, terrorists keep trying to attack the United States at home. And the media and politicians react to it with hysteria, running in fear of getting blamed for a successful attack and perpetuating the gigantic, expensive, counterproductive National Security State. As awful as the snuffing of so many souls on 9/11 was, the second trend has often proved more dangerous than the first.

In case you haven't noticed, hysteria is what the terrorists want. In fact, it's the only win a decapitated, weakened al-Qaida can get these days. The only hope that these eschatological conspiracy theorists possess for success lies in compelling the U.S. to spend its way into oblivion and pursue ill-conceived wars. That's how Osama bin Laden transforms from a cave-dwelling psycho into a world-historical figure--not because of what he was, but because of how we reacted to him.

And that points to the only way out of a trap that's lasted a decade. It has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with politics. The U.S. has to embrace the reality that terrorism is not anything remotely like the existential threat we make it out to be. We can honor those 2,996 without being permanently haunted by them.

Another great article, written by David Shipler and published just a few days before Ackerman's, includes a lot of specific details and historical context.

"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree," James Madison told the Constitutional Convention. We should depend not on officials' goodwill, he was saying, but on a system of restraints. This is what the Patriot Act has damaged, alarming those who believe with Madison that government will do whatever it is allowed to do....

The erosions of constitutional rights have to be clear and obvious enough to mobilize the public. Violations committed in secret are hard to get mad about, especially when you're scanned, frisked, and searched whenever you get on a plane. We mutter complaints, then go along because we are persuaded that we have to relinquish privacy and dignity for security. This sets us up to accept other intimate intrusions. Once people let their bodies be probed and patted and rendered naked by the TSA, they have trouble generating outrage when their bank accounts, e-mails, and phone records are examined by the NSA--especially since they don't know it's happening.

I especially like this: "Having an open society entails some risk. Perfect security, after all, is an aspiration of the police state."