Thread: Culture of fear at the US border Napolitano wants Americans

Culture of fear at the US border

Janet Napolitano wants Americans to stop living in fear. To achieve that, DHS must change its fear-mongering policies

Comments 21

Matthew Harwood guardian.co.uk,
Monday 3 August 2009 18.00 BST

During its seven-year stewardship of homeland security, the Bush administration was rightly condemned for its fear-mongering. So it was refreshing to hear Janet Napolitano, Barack Obama's new secretary of homeland security, speak last Wednesday of "the urgent need to refocus our counterterror approach to make it a shared endeavour ... to get to a point where we are in a constant state of preparedness, not a constant state of fear."

But aside from telling the foreign policy and homeland security elite gathered at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that "the consequences of living in a state of fear, rather than a state of preparedness are enormous," Napolitano was vague about exactly what policies would constitute this new approach to domestic counterterrorism. How exactly will the US move from feelings of fear to the confidence of preparedness?

We certainly aren't going to jettison the culture of fear if current policies remain in place. At the newly constructed port of entry building at Messina, New York, which sits at the Canadian border, Napolitano's own customs and border protection has started to tear down 21-foot-tall yellow letters that spell out "United States". The bold, bright letters greet those entering the US from Canada. The rationale behind the move: the sign could make the building an attractive terrorist target.

"The move is a depressing, if not wholly unpredictable, example of how the lingering trauma of 9/11 can make it difficult for government bureaucracies to make rational decisions," wrote New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff last week. "It reflects a tendency to focus on worst-case scenarios to the exclusion of common sense, as well as a fundamental misreading of the sign and the message it conveys. And if it is carried out as planned, it will gut a design whose playful pop aesthetic is an inspired expression of what America is about."

Fear, it seems, still continues to stalk the American psyche but in a wholly different way. While the Bush administration went fanatically on the offensive for fear of what others could do to us, the Obama administration has chosen to react overprotectively to outlandish scenarios for fear of what we could bring upon ourselves. Both responses are absurd. One guaranteed we would create new enemies, while the other believes tearing down a sign can dissuade already committed foes.

According to Napolitano, the big shift away from fear in the Obama administration's approach to domestic counterterrorism relies on the average American. "For too long," Napolitano said, "we've treated the public as a liability to be protected rather than an asset in our nation's collective security." She called on Americans to prepare family emergency plans, volunteer for CitizenCorps and AmeriCorps and train in basic disaster response.

That's a good start to creating a culture of preparedness. But it's completely undercut by DHS policies that continue to tell Americans: be afraid. While the sign at the Messina port of entry is being dismantled, the ridiculous colour-coded terror alert system – yellow, orange, red! – remains firmly in place. And while Napolitano hopes to enlist ordinary Americans in the fight against terrorism, her department, with the help of federally-funded state fusion centres, politically profiles citizens with unorthodox views, such as antiwar groups and libertarians, confusing them with terrorists for engaging in constitutionally protected activities.

Only once in her speech did Napolitano mention concerns about civil liberties, a reference completely un-moored from persistent concerns that DHS and its support for the fusion centres has created a domestic surveillance apparatus at odds with a free society. Such quiet only provokes legitimate fears that DHS will continue Bush administration policies that eroded civil liberties and criminalised dissent.

Until the Obama administration gets a grip on its own fears and dispels its citizens' justified paranoia, the drumbeat of change will continue to fade, replaced by the sense that this new approach to homeland security is just more of the same.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -liberties

As soon as Janet resigns we won't be fearful.

Of Course people are afraid. Secure our border and protect us and we WONT be afraid...

Well this all makes perfect sence to me, you don't have any idea of how much safer I feel knowing that a US border sign has been taken down, now those foolish terrorist won't know who to bomb, the US or Canada
You want me to feel safer Nappy? Do something with the southern border!
I'm tired of MS 13 drug runners coming through my property, I'm tired of them killing my Border Patrol agents and I'm tired of worring about who's going to kill me or my wife whenever we step outside. But mostly I'm tired of your eight year old approach to protecting Americans!

Both responses are absurd. One guaranteed we would create new enemies, while the other believes tearing down a sign can dissuade already committed foes.

The only thing that will make Americans drop the fear is to close the borders, require mandatory E-Verify for anyone employed in any private business, drop the 14th Amendment retroactively and deport anyone here illegally, find an acceptable way to track visitors entering and leaving, stop providing social services and every other freebie to illegals, plus a few more things.
That will make me feel a lot safer than duct-taping my windows against a terror attack, as father of the color-coded threat scale, Tom Ridge, suggested.
Tearing down a sign is stupid in more ways than one.