Monday, July 19, 2004
Homeland Security: Priorities Worsen
The latest news is that with the encouragement of the FBI, the CIA is sending a force into the field to brief local communities around the country on the terrorism threat. This is not a matter of briefing communities on which the CIA has particular information, or which are located near to a possible target (such as a nuclear power facility or a large dam). No, it is simply telling people everywhere what to watch for and how to respond when terrorism strikes.
As we have discussed before in these posts, the Homeland Security program that attempts to reach into every village and town is itself a major misplacement of priorities. Now we are adding to the CIA agenda an equally foolish job. Of course, one can say that terrorism can strike anywhere and it can. But we must spend our resources in men and materiel and attention on the higher priorities. If Homeland Security and the CIA have done all they can to protect major identifiable targets, such as the major cities, Boulder Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge, then let them gradually move down the list to less probable targets.
I try not to think that such exercises are actually undertaken to keep the entire country in a general state of low-level panic, thereby increasing the power of government and protecting the incumbency of the President. A alternate explanation is that this is just an another example of bureaucratic expansionism, fueled in part by the use of the over-general term "terrorism" (which can include high school bombers) rather than that of our real enemy today, identified loosely with the term "al-Qaida".
The latest news is that with the encouragement of the FBI, the CIA is sending a force into the field to brief local communities around the country on the terrorism threat. This is not a matter of briefing communities on which the CIA has particular information, or which are located near to a possible target (such as a nuclear power facility or a large dam). No, it is simply telling people everywhere what to watch for and how to respond when terrorism strikes.
As we have discussed before in these posts, the Homeland Security program that attempts to reach into every village and town is itself a major misplacement of priorities. Now we are adding to the CIA agenda an equally foolish job. Of course, one can say that terrorism can strike anywhere and it can. But we must spend our resources in men and materiel and attention on the higher priorities. If Homeland Security and the CIA have done all they can to protect major identifiable targets, such as the major cities, Boulder Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge, then let them gradually move down the list to less probable targets.
I try not to think that such exercises are actually undertaken to keep the entire country in a general state of low-level panic, thereby increasing the power of government and protecting the incumbency of the President. A alternate explanation is that this is just an another example of bureaucratic expansionism, fueled in part by the use of the over-general term "terrorism" (which can include high school bombers) rather than that of our real enemy today, identified loosely with the term "al-Qaida".
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