The first victim of widespread panic is a proper sense of perspective and proportion. On 1 August, Americans heard from the federal secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, that United States intelligence agents had gathered specific evidence of a planned al-Qaida attack on financial institutions in New York, New Jersey, and Washington D.C.
Unlike previous vague warnings about rumblings and rumours, Ridge this time described actual targets and a general timeframe, so local officials could react with increased security, and citizens could adjust their routines to any new inconveniences that might greet them in the streets of these cities.
This is how its supposed to go when intelligence is dependable, officials are credible, and responses appropriate.
Its about trust
The problem is that too few Americans believe that any of those conditions are even possible these days. Thats too bad. We probably should trust Tom Ridge. Even amidst claims that much of the intelligence that led to the security alert was three or four years old, we should assume that intelligence services get some important stuff right. And we should trust our public officials to take appropriate action to protect us.
But Americans have heard Ridge cry wolf so many times that many among us tend to doubt the sincerity if not the veracity of any claims that he and the Bush administration make about potential terror threats.
Every two or three months Ridge appears on television to declare an increased level of terror threat. Yet he usually offers no specifics that might help us avoid danger. The only advice is to go about your business. What good is that? Its no wonder so many of us doubt his word. Such doubt is not without foundation, but its persistence is corrosive. This time Ridge did the right thing.
This widespread cynicism which I too often share is at least as dangerous as the administrations willingness to overreact to previous indications. Both are symptoms of panic fatigue. For almost three years we in the United States, especially those of us who live in New York or Washington, have been on edge.
We have lurched from one flavour of paranoia to another. We cringe when we hear loud noises (a daily occurrence in New York). We pause when we see an airplane flying an unfamiliar route above (as if we had mastered the flight plans). We distribute rumours of impending chemical or biological attacks that we are sure came from a friend of a friend who works for the FBI (Larry David from the TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm did an entire episode on such frauds, see a clip here).
Yet we nod our heads in sophisticated agreement when we hear Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and presidential contender, question the timing of this latest warning because it came just after the Democratic National Convention.
Dean did us no favours there. He gave us license to dismiss what just might be a real threat. He had no access to mitigating intelligence.
The Bush administrations lack of credibility on almost all matters is frankly dangerous. It is a national security threat. Howard Dean may be irresponsible, but he is not the only one who thinks this way. Even if Dean had kept his mouth shut, there would still have been doubts and rumours about the potentially fraudulent nature of these warnings bouncing around barrooms, barbershops, and the internet.
Panic attack
A recent incident in upstate New York that has reached the level of cause celèbre among civil libertarians and critics of the national security state not unlike myself shows just how much panic has eroded our sense of perspective.
An art professor named Steven Kurtz, who uses images of bacteria in his artwork, was working in his studio in Buffalo when his wife suffered a severe heart attack. Kurtz called an ambulance. When the rescue-team arrived the laboratory equipment in his studio roused their suspicions. After attending to Kurtzs wife (who later died) they alerted the FBI.
Kurtz is a founding member of the Critical Art Ensemble, a group of radical artists who engage in some stunning work, including a whole series of biotech art that criticises recent trends in genetic engineering. He is a fervent critic of the Bush administration. And his work often censures the current national security panic.
While Kurtz was mourning the loss of his wife, the FBI confiscated his lab materials, computer and cat, and arrested him. Their subsequent investigation yielded no charges related to bio-terrorism.
The bacteria and agents Kurtz uses mailed to him by a biologist at the University of Pittsburgh, Robert Ferrell are harmless to humans and are in common use in university laboratories.
This barrage of protest about Kurtzs fate is understandable and in some ways justified. When I first heard the news, I thought it was the perfect story to expose the excesses of the Bush security state. His story helps illustrate the administrations futile search for bio-terrorism in Iraq by showing how far it will go to find illicit bacteria in western New York.
The FBI has been more than delinquent in its misapplication of resources against harmless crimes while botching efforts that might have prevented the attacks of 11 September 2001. Radical conservatives have all but declared war on academics and intellectuals who criticise their methods and intentions. And the Bush administration has undermined science through excessive security measures, limits on student visas, and the corruption of federal scientific panels to yield results that conform to conservative religious predilections.
I was ready to jump on the bandwagon and champion Kurtz in this column and elsewhere. But then I thought about how it all went down, and how far this case is from other, more serious breaches of human rights and due process that the Bush administration is guilty of.
Sense and sensibility
Here are the mitigating facts. The FBI had reason to search Kurtzs house. It did so appropriately, with a lawful and public warrant. Kurtz retained counsel and can defend himself in court. The news of his arrest went out immediately. And Kurtz and Ferrell were charged with the appropriate crime for clandestinely shipping controlled materials: mail fraud.
The United States has reasonable restrictions on the distribution of biological materials and resources. All responsible scientists conform to strict record keeping and registration protocols, regardless of their political persuasion, ethnic background, or nationality. Those who violate such regulations should be punished.
The Kurtz case is one in which the information was good, the law was clear and fair, and authorities acted reasonably and appropriately. I was almost guilty of being swept up in the civil libertarian panic. I almost lost perspective. And I almost blew the Kurtz case out of proportion.
In an age in which officials have blown their reputations through false alarms, rammed through extreme and opaque laws such as the USA PATRIOT Act, and otherwise reasonable and intelligent people either overreact to limited threats or dismiss legitimate actions, we are only harming ourselves. I fear it will be decades before we regain the trust and solidarity necessary to carry on and thrive in a dangerous world.
