We've heard both sets of horror stories in these years after the incident. There's the "waiting in line for hours only to be singled out for a cavity search??" moans and the "oh god, someone got a pair of scissors through -- where's security!?" groans. Yeah, the time it takes you to board your flight has been slowed down drastically while everyone is searched with a fine-tooth comb, but people are still managing to get items on board -- items that should be a no-no, and a lot of these people aren't terrorists, thankfully.
We're fighting "terrorists" over in the Middle East while the folks at home are complaining about a smaller form of "terrorism" -- Mexicans sneaking (if one can call it sneaking) through the border into our country. And the idea is this: if you can't maintain the borders of this country, how can you effectively fight terrorism?
Another problem, that PC World brought up today, is that the government is pouring a lot of money into their electronic surveillance program which includes:
1.) the beloved wiretapping program that does more to alert our government to the bowel problems that we discuss with family members than it does to find the next act of terrorism against the country,
2.) Homeland Security, whose workers seem to spend a bigger portion of their time online looking for little kids to seduce rather than researching the background of "that suspicious-looking Middle Eastern guy" or helping the victims of national disasters,
3.) and don't forget the program that allows the Bush Administration to view a list of any library book we've ever read.
It's sad to think that so much money is going into programs that aren't doing anything to protect us (the liquid bomb thing doesn't count, folks -- that was foiled by British intelligence), while the programs that could help are still waiting for funding.
Following the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, the government launched a robust, and oft-criticized, electronic surveillance program, but other IT-related security projects designed to thwart terrorism have seen little advance.
Better cybersecurity leadership, more scanning of cargo going on airplanes and ships, and interoperable communications networks for emergency response agencies have all developed slowly. In some cases, fights in Congress have slowed progress, or the federal government has focused on other priorities. In other cases, the cost of IT projects has been an issue.
So how safe are we? Just about as safe as we were on that fateful day. If I had to guess, I'd say that the only area in which we're safer is that we aren't fighting insurgents in Iraq.
Tags:
[Anniversary Of 9/11], [9/11], [terrorists], [Middle East], [terrorism], [wiretapping program], [Homeland Security], [Bush Administration], [September 11, 2001], [Are we safer now, compared to where we were 5 years ago], [war on terror], [politics]
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