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1 Chapter 1 Introduction: A Climate of Threat and Vulnerability T he September 11 attacks transformed a nation that had been absorbed in the contentious 2000 presidential election, Republicanproposed tax cuts, shark attacks off the California coast, and Barry Bonds’s pace to break Mark McGwire’s single-season home run record into a nation contemplating its own mortality and the threat of terrorism. Previous controversies, social conflicts, and esoteric concerns became in- finitesimal compared to the newfound sense of fear and vulnerability American citizens suddenly faced. Time literally stood still as the images of that day were replayed in a never-ending loop: passenger airliners exploding into buildings, people leaping from the top floors of the World Trade Center towers, the collapse of the towers onto both office and rescue workers, and the smoldering Pentagon. This came at the hands of foreign terrorists, who used America’s openness to carry out a massive and heinous attack against innocent citizens. Perhaps indicative of an increasingly self-absorbed and complacent culture that viewed international affairs as remote and inconsequential, it was simply unimaginable that nineteen men with box cutters from one of the more desolate regions in the world could organize an attack that could kill thousands of American citizens and, in the process, compel American society and political authorities to reassess its security and freedom. In coming to terms with their new sense of vulnerability, American citizens had to confront the fact that they were part of a larger community of nations, in which their happiness and security were increasingly attached to the happiness of others around the world. Although America had been attacked before—by Japan in 1941, by foreign terrorists, also on the World Trade Center, in 1993, and by domestic terrorists on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995—most Americans had neither experienced nor understood what it was like to live under the threat of terror. For much of its existence, America has been a stable and relatively orderly society. Citizens largely have had lit- tle to fear, and the things they feared the most were usually small and vicarious. Most other societies had already experienced the ravages of war and uncertainty, but Americans had been, for the most part, exempt from direct threats and feelings of vulnerability. Fear that another attack was waiting to happen weakened many previous convictions and governed how Americans interacted with each other and perceived political authorities. American citizens have also had to adjust to restrictions on their civil liberties and personal freedoms. Political authorities framed and widely promoted the notion that individual citizens would have to accept constraints on some of their freedom and civil liberties if those responsible were to be brought to justice and other attacks thought to be imminent were to be prevented. That citizens’ rights should be protected from the government has been a fundamental tenet of American democracy: swapping liberty for greater security, even in the face of an external enemy , meant shifting the balance of procedural rights away from the individual and toward the government—another uncertain and frightening endeavor. Of course, many citizens seemed to tolerate the infringement on their civil rights and liberties as a necessary trade-off, given the threat of terrorism, but many others were also justifiably troubled by the constraints . The conflict between national security and civil liberties in American society can be placed in a broader historical context. For instance, in 1798, with the threat of war with France and growing criticism of President John Adams’s Federalist foreign policy by Thomas Jefferson’s Republican Party, American citizens faced imprisonment or deportation for criticizing the government. Intended to silence the opposing Republican Party, the Alien and Sedition Acts could have nullified the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and an independent press. In 1861, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and restricted the freedoms of speech and the press for acts that discouraged enlistment or engaged in disloyal practices . World War I ushered in a number of laws and practices intended to crush dissent and leftist activities. Foreigners, generally viewed as suspicious or undesirable, were prohibited from working certain jobs and living in certain areas. With the Palmer Raids of the 1920s, suspected communists and socialists could be arrested or deported. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, fearing internal sabotage and attacks, ordered the forcible internment of Japanese Americans, detaining more than 120,000...

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