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A
magazine I recently subscribed to, Mother Jones, just brought
something to my attention that I think is very interesting. MJ
points out that the US defense budget for terrorist threats has
grown each year while terrorist threats worldwide have been on
a steady decline since the end of the Cold War. Many of these
agencies are using terrorism as an excuse to maintain and even
increase their budgets, while the only place you'd get an idea
of terrorist threatening mass destruction is in fictional novels
and media hype. In fact, even the FBI admits that the threat of
a “mass destruction” attack is near zero.
Last
year, FBI Director Louis Freeh testified to Congress, “The United
States hold little credible intelligence indicating that international
or domestic terrorists are planning to attack United States interests
domestically through the use of weapons of mass destruction.” So
why is the US now spending $11 billion a year to defend against
a threat that doesn't exist?
Beyond
the over-inflated budgets, organizations such as the FBI have expanded
their jurisdiction to the point that many civil liberties could
be threatened. Civilian surveillance has dramatically increased
inversely to the actual threat to the state. Sigh…
The
implications of all this should be pretty obvious. Aside from the
realization of one more unnecessary (or grossly over-funded) government
program, what concerns me more is the increased government surveillance
and loss of privacy. Our government is getting paranoid, and the
media is selling it to the public. But why? What is the motivation
behind these things?
Obviously
the media is constantly looking for sensationalism for their precious
“ratings.” This is the cause for most public misconceptions, and
is fed by the fact that fiction often makes for a better story than
fact. Because most everyone is a product of the same public education
system, which teaches from books, most people are trained to believe
everything they read—printed words must be credible. This now
carries over to other mediums such as radio (read: War of the Worlds),
television, and even (fw: ) email. All of these factors contribute
to a mislead public—people hear what is most interesting and
automatically believe everything they hear.
The
Government's motivation isn't quite so obvious. I think the main
source of the problem is people who don't want to lose their jobs.
If you are the head of a government department who is losing funding
and purpose it's understandable that you will start looking for
things to do. Terrorism seems to be the latest hip trend. And of
course, media attention will support their budget proposals—and
who would be against anti-terrorist action? After all, everyone
would be for defending against anything that could threaten his
or her children. The problem comes when budgets and spending are
approved for problems that don't really exist; this is frivolous.
Keeping people employed is certainly noble, but our government's
resources could be used to address more pressing problems.
This
motivation behind government agencies to maintain funding goes beyond
just excess spending; as I mentioned before, there are now privacy
issues involved. A paranoid government is a dangerous thing. I have
always thought that the government would eventually come to something
of an Orwellian state, and that terrorist threats were a realistic
justification. I'm starting to see confirmation of this theory.
Coupled with new technologies and digital environments such as the
Internet people are more susceptible to monitoring than ever. The
media hype surrounding terrorist threats really don't help the situation
at all. In fact, even if the public was made generally aware of
its decreasing privacy, people may accept it because of the illusion
that they are being threatened. The government will justify itself
by flashing pictures of Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center,
both of which were caused by traditional bombs. The threat from
weapons of mass destruction will be used to increase the fear and
foment the paranoia.
The
whole situation reeks of the Cold War Civil Defense program, in
which the government spent billions of dollars to protect citizens
from nuclear attack, when in reality a shelter won't provide much
protection in such an event and only puts the public into a state
of unnecessary fear. People need to decide if it's worth maintaining
an artificial state of anxiety and being watched by the government
to be protected from something that may not exist at all.
Copyright
© 2000 Brian Scates. All Rights Reserved
Brian
is a graphic artist by trade working for Freebie.com. Brian is
the president of screwmetallica.org/exitanalog.org, a site dedicated
to educating the public about the mp3/Napster controversy and
its true implications. Brian is also the owner of LogoWonders.com
as well as the official “Secretary of Keeping it Real.” In his
spare time he is an art major at Stephen F. Austin State University
in East Texas.
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