The Good Old Pre 9/11 Days
I am sure that most of us can remember what the world was like ten years ago. Boy bands were the music sensation of the nation, one of the closest elections ever had just ended, and cells phones were a fast growing new technology. Those were the good old days. When the biggest worries of the nation were who was going to win the World Series or which car they should buy. Within one year later, all of that changed for the worse.
America had experienced the worst attack on the nation since Pearl Harbor and with that came a sense of fear that overtook the nation. Then government stepped in and offered the nation a sense of security. Little did anyone know what they would pay to feel that they were safe. Over the next nine years untill present day, the Department Of Homeland Security grew in power and has the nation in a tight grip of monitoring. To truly see how much the DHS has grown over the past few years, we have to look to the past.
Before the attacks on 9/11, the government offices responsible for keeping the nation safe were the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Due to an act signed by President Clinton, the two agencies were not allowed to share information. This was a fatal flaw in the nation’s security to prevent attacks from happening. To prevent this from happening again the Department of Homeland Security was formed. That was a big change in security the public noticed, but where the public noticed the upgraded security the most were in the most common places.
Before the 9/11 attacks, airport security was taken care of by the airline companies. The check in process was relatively simple and people could be on their way. Another place where people saw increased security was on the streets right out of their front door. In major cities like New York, citizens saw armed national guardsmen equipped with M-16 assault rifles. Police monitored cameras mounted on streetlights had a constant eye on citizens. Little did anyone know that the rise in security or rise of paranoia would only get worse.
I actually remember when I was in middle school, how everybody was saying how Iraq had attacked us, how they destroyed the towers. I knew that it wasn't Iraq, because I was told it was variety of arabic terroists with no actual alliance with any others, but as you said, it was the paranoia that drove the majority of the United States civillians. Also, they weren't just using cameras; they were tapping phones as well. Both of these things are quite unconstitutional, but it's because citizens were so paranoid about terrorists inside the States, they allowed it to happen.
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