9/11

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A Fable for the War on Terror

by Erik Kain on September 12, 2011

Via John Quiggin, a passage from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation: “A horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. Being driven to desperation, it occurred to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was [...]



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Civil Liberties in the Post-9/11 Era

by Erik Kain on September 12, 2011

Jason Kuznicki has one of the most stirring 9/11 posts I’ve read. Forgive me a longer-than-usual excerpt: September 11 was the day “Orwellian” stopped being an argument against anything. It became a checklist. My country started collecting various-sized bits of Nineteen Eighty-Four like so many grim commemorative postage stamps. Constant surveillance. Constant warfare. Constant suspicion. [...]



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9/11 Chart of the Day

by Erik Kain on September 12, 2011

The Patriot Act was designed to fight terror, but as I mentioned earlier it has been used primarily to ramp up the War on Drugs. This chart should help illustrate the point: This is the number of “sneak and peak” raids issued between 2006 and 2009. These are search warrants executed with ‘delayed notification’. Targets [...]



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9/11 and the Surveillance State

by Erik Kain on September 12, 2011

Ryan Sigel has a good piece in Wired noting the loss of privacy in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The Patriot Act gave law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, a great deal more leniency in how they can gather information. Using the fear of terrorism, the government has expanded its surveillance powers in ways [...]



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Police Militarization in the Decade Following 9/11

by Erik Kain on September 12, 2011

Police forces have grown increasingly militarized in the years following the September 11th attacks. In part, this is a response to new rules established in the PATRIOT Act. A surplus of decommissioned military equipment and weapons has also found its way into domestic police forces. SWAT teams have been used with increasing frequency, sometimes just [...]



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