Impact of Mass Hysteria from 9/11
- The USA PATRIOT ACT
- DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY/ TSA
- THE WAR IN IRAQ
- THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism
AKA THE USA PATRIOT ACT
Soon after the attack on 9/11 government security and intelligence agents were given these broad powers to:
- Spy on citizens and other legal residents, with no evidence of a crime being committed
- Keep legal proceedings private that used to be public
- Engage in ethnic profiling where they were detained without any criminal charges
- Conduct wiretaps and searches in secret without probable cause
- Monitor the people's internet and library use
Who fueled this environment of fear?
- Our government, the Bush Administration
- Christian fundamentalist political forces
- TV media and Homeland Security
- All their propaganda!
What is the impact?
- Growth of people with uncontrollable power
- Legal reforms that reinforce mob mentality of revenge and racism
- Caused a fanatical and poisonous challenge to democracy
- Loss of constitutional rights and civil liberties
HOMELAND SECURITY / TSA
- The Bush administration founded the Department of Homeland Security as a central, coordinating office that would respond to the new threats
- Congress has given vast sums for “homeland security” spending
- Nobody knows if the Department of Homeland Security is effective because it is so big it is impossible to say
- A lot of policy goals with little ability to coordinate different offices
- $791 billion dollars in federal funding have gone to homeland security (more than the whole New Deal would have cost today)
- In the name of national security it also started a witch hunt (which had a lot to do with prejudices and not security) with mass deportations
- Transportation Security Agency, TSA is also coming under fire from several states for their practices of grope and feel practices in airports, and bus and train stations
- They have gone overboard searching priests, disabled people, and four-year olds.
THE WAR IN IRAQ
- Many Americans still believe that Saddam and al-Qaeda conspired together in the 9/11 attacks because the Bush administration told them this LIE.
- In 2004 a House of Representatives Committee identified: 237 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security Adviser Rice.
- They were made in 125 different appearances. There were 61 separate statements that "misrepresented Iraq's ties to al-Queda."
- In order to find the smoking gun between al-Queda and Iraq, the Bush administration tortured detainees in Afghanistan, to get them to say it was true.
- The government exploited our pain and indignation over the attack of 9/11 in order to gain support for a war in Iraq by lying to us.
AFGHANISTAN
- Our purpose was to hunt down Osama bin Laden and al-Queda followers
- We have killed Osama bin Laden
- Our troops are still fighting and we have lost over 2,000 Americans
- American people not as interested now since so much time has passed since 9/11