In the wake of the San Bernardino massacre at the hands of two fanatical Islamic terrorists, a foolish and dangerous false bravado has lately been circulating. In various forms, it goes something like this:
“While the murder of innocent Americans in any single terrorist attack is shocking and appalling, we should be leery of overreacting. Only a tiny fraction of our countrymen and women have been killed or injured. Actually, more Americans drown in bathtubs every year than are killed by terrorists. If we overreact and compromise our basic freedoms by allowing government agencies like the NSA to listen in on our telephone conversations, then the terrorists win. Let’s just suck it up, take the risk, go about our business and let the chips fall where they may. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
You get the idea. Most of this is platitudinous hokum. In fact, we have plenty to rationally fear besides fear itself. True, your probability of being killed in a terrorist attack is extremely low but an attack like the one on 9/11 paralyzed the country. You’ll recall that all civilian air travel was instantly shut down for days. And the massive costs of national defense, government-directed homeland security, its counterpart in the private sector, and lost economic activity and productivity that followed and still prevail have run into the trillions. While necessary, these are unproductive overhead expenses.
If something like the recent attack on Paris was directed at New York, our reaction would be overwhelming. Some courageous souls might “suck it up and go about their business” but the mass public would demand much, much more. France’s socialist president, Francois Hollande, instantly abandoned his normally pacifist instincts and became an overnight warrior. American political leaders would do no less. They’d hardly ignore the public outcry for protection and retaliation. On matters of governmental policy, public perception is political reality.
There’s always a tradeoff between absolute freedom and security. That’s why at times of national peril in our history we’ve had a military draft, curfews, blackouts, rationing, supplemental war taxes and wage and price controls. It’s why, today, we allow our bodies and possessions to be searched by the TSA at airport security without reasonable cause or a warrant. As an open society protective of individual rights and due process (up to a point), we’re especially vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
NSA metadata surveillance has been an essential and powerful tool. It most definitely does not eavesdrop on the content of personal phone calls among 300 million Americans. Rather, it uses sophisticated computer algorithms to monitor the patterns of communications of suspected Islamic terrorist networks and does so under the judicial oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It’s our first line of defense against terrorist attacks. There needs to be more of it, not less.
When necessity in the face of an existential threat requires reasonable tradeoffs between freedom and security, the terrorists, most certainly, “haven’t won.” They’ll have won only when they overrun the Capitol in Washington, D.C., strike the American flag and replace our elected government with an Islamic caliphate, forcibly converting all of us to their tyrannical religion.
Here’s the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook: “I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world devourers (he meant us) wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them … . Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours.”
These maniacs mean business. Your bathtub is at worst a passive threat. It doesn’t want to kill you.
Mike Rosen is a KOA NewsRadio personality.
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