Clipped: The Fear Factory
This story from Rolling Stone is a few issues old, but can be found online. In the War on Terror, it seems there is
"The hope is that they will nab an actual terrorist or prevent a putative jihadi from becoming one," says David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University and co-author of Less Safe, Less Free, a new book detailing the ways 9/11 has transformed domestic law enforcement. "It makes sense in general —but when you're pressing people to undertake conduct they would have never undertaken without an informant pushing them along, there is a real question if you're creating crime, not preventing crime." -- Rolling Stone, The Fear Factory, Feb. 7 2008.
Comments
Consider the current faux conservative push toward accountability. Teachers should be made accountable. Immigrants should be forced to follow all the rules that their employers won't. Entitlement programs should be measured in a businesslike way and those not performing should be eliminated.
I agree with a lot of that, except for the question of who does the measuring.
What, let's ask, would be the upshot of measuring the success and efficacy of the huge security apparatus that has been built up at every level of government and society over the last five years? If all that security were supposed to be accountable - by measuring performance, would they stay or would they go?
If conservatives (faux or real) like to bash liberal programs for being wasteful and without social benefit, wouldn't it make equal sense to look at the law enforcement, covert intelligence, detention and security industry's wastefulness and impact on constitutional rule of law? Is it doing what it was supposed to do? Have they delivered on any promises? If not, chuck the program.
The numbers game is what kept (keeps) the War on Drugs alive for so long, despite the fact that the WoD has had no effect on reducing drug use or violence long term.