David McGowan
August 2000
The National Commission on Terrorism released a sixty-four page report this June in which a variety of measures designed to hasten the rise of the overt police state were recommended. According to the panel, these recommendations were based on a conclusion reached after conducting a six-month world-wide investigation.
This investigation led the bipartisan commission to the rather remarkable conclusion that "a well-financed, fanatical and global terrorist network poses exceedingly difficult problems for U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies." Commission chairman L. Paul Bremer III, a former State Department ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism (which is to say, a spook) summed up the problem thusly: "the threat is changing, and it's becoming more deadly."
First, the good news: the aforementioned commission chairman was quick to clarify that the report is "not recommending martial law." (3) Whew! That sure is a relief (of course, it would be even more of a relief if the good chairman had not even felt the need to bring up the subject of martial law).
For starters, we need "more wiretaps on Americans." That will show those fanatical bastards that we are getting serious about fighting a war on terrorism. We also need to start "using the Army to replace civilian law enforcement" (though how you tell the difference anymore between 'civilian' law enforcement and military personnel is beyond me). And even more importantly, we need to start "stigmatizing foreign students who switch their majors to science," (4) lest they scurry back to the terrorist-harboring rogue state that they call home and start building nuclear warheads.
And let's follow another of the commission's recommendations and begin "threatening sanctions against states normally regarded as friendly to U.S. interests, such as Greece and Pakistan."

On a more serious note, it is abundantly clear that the call for yet more repressive police state measures has absolutely nothing to do with protecting the American people from international terrorism. The true agenda - the further repression of democratic rights in this country - couldn't be any more clear. And neither could the task before the American people be any more clear. It's up to us to rid the world of the primary sponsor of international terrorism, and we'd better get started pretty goddamn soon.