Americans lived in constant fear following September 11, 2001. (Haha, what’s that like? asks my pandemic brain.) They were understandably confused when two planes took down the tallest buildings in New York and crashed into the Pentagon. Our financial and military headquarters are secure, right? Right?
Even back then it was becoming clear to a few of us that the response by government and corporations was going to make things worse. Their message to us, other than “keep shopping”, was a mix of fear stoking and war mongering. Then they got together to figure out how to work together spying on us, militarizing the police, and preparing for war.
Tom Ridge was the first head of the Department of Homeland Security, formed in November 2002. “Homeland” had an ominous ring to it back then, and right now as half the government is openly entertaining fascism as a governing ideology, I’m not sitting well with it still. One of the first things Tom did was recommend the American people get a hold of some duct tape to keep themselves safe. This provoked widespread mockery. Compared to the unconstitutional and invasive methods of surveillance, data mining, etc the government was up to (with help from the telecom and internet industries), the measures they suggested to keep safe seemed week, performative and ludicrous.
What we really needed was advice on how to protect ourselves from NSA domestic spying operations.
