When it comes to the national security state, our capital has become a thought-free zone. The airlessness of the place, the unwillingness of leading players in the corridors of power to explore new ways of approaching crucial problems is right there in plain sight, yet remarkably unnoticed. Consider this the Tao of Washington.<\/p>\n
Last week, based on a heavily redacted 231-page document released by the government in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Charlie Savage, a superb reporter for the New York Times<\/em>, revealed<\/a> that the FBI has become a \u201csignificant player\u201d in the world of warrantless surveillance, previously the bailiwick of the National Security Agency. The headline on his piece was: \u201cFBI is broadening surveillance role, report shows.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my question: In the last 13 years, can you remember a single headline related to the national security state that went \u201cFBI [or fill in your agency of choice] is narrowing surveillance role [or fill in your role of choice], report shows\u201d? Of course not, because when any crisis, problem, snafu or set of uncomfortable feelings, fears, or acts arises, including those by tiny groups of disturbed people or what are now called \u201clone wolf\u201d terrorists, there is only one imaginable response: more money, more infrastructure, more private contractors, more surveillance, more weaponry, and more war. On a range of subjects, our post-9\/11 experience should have taught us that this<\/em> — whatever it is we\u2019re doing — is no solution to anything, but no such luck.<\/p>\n More tax dollars consumed, more intrusions in our lives, the further militarization of the country, the dispatching of some part of the U.S. military to yet another country, the enshrining of war or war-like actions as the option of choice — this, by now, is a way of life. These days, the only headlines out of Washington that should surprise us would have \u201cnarrowing\u201d or \u201cless,\u201d not \u201cbroadening\u201d or \u201cmore,\u201d in them.<\/p>\n