by Kevin Rollins
As we pass by another anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we see the Bush administration and Congress using the occasion to push for new anti-terrorism legislation. These provisions include an after-the-fact approval of the president’s NSA wiretapping program, the legality of which has been questioned, and new authority to use harsh measures when interrogating War on Terror suspects.
The basic principle guiding the administration’s arguments is that Americans cannot be safe if we do not grant the authority to government to do these things. This argument has been used over and over again for the last five years. It is clear that if the federal government did nothing at all to undermine people who wish us harm, that indeed we would suffer more greatly from terrorism. But, it must also be recognized that the government’s measures against terrorism are in fact a part of the cost of terrorism. As each new program is enacted, the government is empowered while individual liberties are curtailed. The cost of terrorism is increased if it is not offset by real reductions in the terrorists’ ability to cause mayhem.
In order to pursue a particular policy, the public must give up on other opportunities. Dr. Roger Congleton, a professor of economics at George Mason University, points this out his paper, “Terrorism, Interest-Group Politics, and Public Policy.”
“…as with any other effort to manage large-scale risks, the appropriate effort to discourage terrorism is not simply a matter of putting in place all the policies that can potentially reduce the risk of damages from terrorist acts…Overall, the policies adopted should, ideally, maximize the net advantage from collective risk management across all policy areas…”
Further we must ask whether these programs do not increase the cost of terrorism, rather than reduce it. In that case, we are adding both the cost of the government action plus the cost of the new terrorism inspired by that action. In his book, Terrorism and Tyranny, James Bovard notes the failure of government leaders to realize this:
“A core fallacy at the heart of the war on terrorism is that terrorism is worse than almost anything else imaginable…But is the United States suffering more from political exploitation of terrorism than from terrorists? Is the Bush administration’s aggression creating more terrorists than it is vanquishing? And what are the prospects for the survival of American liberty from an endless war against an elusive, often ill-defined enemy?”
Many aspects of the War on Terror are questionable as to whether they are worth the cost in terms of civil liberties and financial well-being. The government was quite well-funded and had tremendous legal powers to pursue terrorists pre-9/11. Nonetheless, the attacks still took place. The invasion of Iraq was touted as a sure-fire solution to a belligerent Middle East. The result has been chaos and devastation for the people of Iraq, a black eye for Uncle Sam, exploding expenditures for the US taxpayer, and the loss of so many American servicemen. Much like stationing armed National Guardsmen at airports directly after the 9/11 attacks, we must wonder if many of the governments programs have had any teeth at all.
The logic that, “if only we had these powers, we could fight terrorism,” is oddly analogous to the argument that Republicans have made over the years that, “if we only had control of all the branches of government, then we could reduce the federal bureaucracy.” Giving new powers to the government to fight terror may be no more effective than the GOP has been at reducing the bloat of the Leviathan. The efforts of the administration to keep hidden the details of the war on terror, with its secret prisons, secret tribunals, secret warrants, and the damning of all who question these policies as enablers of the terrorists makes us wonder if the administration is willing to honestly evaluate the net benefit of these programs.
One way to error-check our anti-terrorism programs is to allow the people directly implementing the programs to communicate what they are experiencing. The Liberty Coalition and several of its partner organizations have been working to obtain protection for national security employees who blow the whistle on government misconduct or try to make known the gaping holes in our security infrastructure. These brave individuals have been retaliated against by their departments. Such retribution undermines our national security and prevents us from making changes The House has passed several bills providing for substantial protections for national security whistleblowers, while the Senate passed a more lackluster bill. But, the White House couldn’t even agree to the watered down conference committee report on the subject.
Until policy-makers get serious about subjecting War on Terror programs to a cold and sober cost-benefit analysis, along with measures to ensure accountability and to test the effectiveness of programs, we will see escalating costs from unnecessary programs and failed policies.
Kevin D. Rollins is the communications director of the Liberty Coalition, a transpartisan network dedicated to defending Americans’ liberties, and serves as president of the Center for Liberty and Community.