Reign of terror

It’s enough to turn you off science fiction for life. Stepping out of Boston’s Logan airport the recording announces: “We are now in a state of high alert, Code Orange. We thank you for your co-operation as we endeavour to secure your safe passage.” The voice is so calm, friendly and altogether O’Brien-like that it takes a moment to realise the import of the words. Then a huge cop walks past, fitted out with Judge Dredd style pantaloons, leather vest, cap and assorted weaponry. The look he gives me is anything but comical. Welcome to the USA. Mess with us and we’ll kill you.

A nation that has always been highly patriotic now finds that patriotism used as an excuse for almost anything. 9-11 gave the go-ahead for the outright denial of civil liberties, from prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay without trial or representation, to the rest of us, or at least those of us who like to travel freely. The US wants to keep tabs on all of us, and European governments seem happy to accede. In the coming months and years a wealth of data about European citizens will be provided freely to American intelligence agencies. The sweet shop has been opened and the CIA and FBI are surely gleefully rubbing their sticky fingers together.
Waking up in Miami on the 1st of January, the top story in local and nation-wide print and TV is that there had NOT been a terrorist attack on New Year’s Eve. All day long the main story is that there is no story. Thanks to our Orange Alert high security measures, goes the spin, we prevented a possibly deadly attack on our nation. Fox News (run by George Bush’s cousin) is one of the worst culprits. Isn’t it worth all the long queues, flights being turned back, and fighter jets escorting planes which landed near Washington and LA ? Worth the fact that your darker-skinned friends are hounded by security everywhere ? God bless Homeland Security. Of course no evidence of any real threat was provided, and many ‘Code Orange’ delays were due to software incompatibilities between the airlines and US intelligence computer systems.
I suppose I should have been thankful I wasn’t due to board one of the six flights between Paris and Los Angeles which were grounded since Christmas Eve. French border police asked by US authorities to check names on passenger lists as suspected terrorists say that among the names checked, none came up with any terrorist links. Instead they discovered a 5-year old child, a prominent Egyptian scientist, a Chinese woman and a Welsh insurance agent.
It seems the US agencies are not as au fait in coping with spellings and pronunciations of Arabic names as are their French counterparts who deal frequently with North African and Middle Eastern passengers. Worryingly, for all of their bluster, US intelligence seems to be lacking in knowledge and information regarding the inhabitants of those very countries they are either at war with, or who they say are presenting a terrorist threat. Much as in the initial stages of the war against Afghanistan, when the biggest hindrance to US forces was not weather or guerrilla tactics of their opponents, but a simple ignorance of local languages, alphabets and customs. Every newspaper in the Western world, including the Irish Times suddenly began carrying unattributed ads looking for Urdu and Farsi language speakers.
Now, however the US seem as interested in names like Malone and O’Connell. If you apply for, or renew your Irish passport after October 26th this year, you will find yourself the proud owner of a biometric passport, with a digital chip containing an encoded record of your face, as well as possibly your fingerprint and iris scan. At only 18 Euros more than the old passport, this new chip could also easily contain a record of your DNA, leading some commentators to worry about this possibility being utilised in the future. DNA records can predict illness and likely health and could potentially be used by US insurance companies to instruct their subsidiaries here as to an individual’s negative insurance risks.
In addition, further restrictions and delays will be commonplace in what a US Govt. advisor recently described as a ‘generational’ or lifelong war against terrorism. The Gardaí have admitted they are ready to provide Air Marshals on all flights from Ireland to the US if required. Aer Lingus have signed up to new US guidelines which ask that passengers not be allowed to congregate near toilets. (The Aer Lingus flight I took from JFK on January 5 this year was clearly not in compliance as many of the hundreds of passengers queued in miserable non-terrorist huddles for the six available cubicles.) Just as airline safety records have begun improving and global travel has become available to almost all, there now looks set to be a steady decline in terms of efficiency and progress.
Many pundits, including right-wing ones in the USA, have expressed worries that all of the security and rainbow-coloured alerts may not prevent terrorists from moving freely or carrying out their threats. Terrorists, by their very nature, act alone, or in small guerrilla-style cells. They are intelligent and adaptable and aim to behave like any member of the general public. Unless the movement of the entire public is restricted it is difficult to see how all or any terrorists can be stopped. The boy who cried wolf is a comparison no US government official wants to hear. When one thinks of the inability of the US to prevent hundreds of thousands of kilos of narcotics entering their country then the prospect is truly scary.
The USA has a legitimate concern, and nobody wants to be affected by terrorism. But necessary security measures have been accompanied and even superseded by the Bush administration’s desire to strengthen their power base and bolster their coffers. Key US government figures including the Bush family and Dick Cheney are directly profiting from this ‘war on terror’ through their links to, or ownership of, companies which deal in munitions, fuel and even construction. Turning a blind eye to growing numbers of dead American soldiers, the US government are treating this war as a lucrative game. They know that in chess, as in business, you never turn down an opportunity to profit. And who do you think are the pawns?

For a related feature, Peter Murphy recounts his recent holiday experiences in the US and the effect that media paranoia has on the public's psyche in The view from the panic room.