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Minority Report
The preemptive paradigm, which prevails in the Governments view on what it takes to secure national interests, is scary as hell.
This paradigm of preventive and preemptive action against foreign and domestic threats – the definition of which being mainly left up to the Government and only rarely, and never clearly, communicated to the public - makes suspicion, prediction and presumption basis for counter-measures. These take precedence and get more funding than the old-fashioned way of dealing with threats which adheres to the requirement of international and national law of needing to have objective after-the-fact evidence
This is the Government crossing the line between Minority Report and LAPD: Life on the Beat.
In effect, the principle of evidence of action taken to legitimize use force and restriction of rights was replaced by suspicion of intent.
Subsequently, interrogation would be used to find projective evidence about future planned events. Rather risk some “legal casualties” by acting on “actionable suspicion” – suspicions precise enough to guide action - than aiming for obtaining reasonable certainty.
That could, after all, come in the form of “The Mushroom Cloud.”
The “Enemy Within”
It is only logical that sweeping intelligence gathering would follow, and that the targets would have to be everyone – since the threats, we are told, come from people who are just like everyone except that they are ticking time bombs.
In case you have not noticed, the link between terrorism and people who identify or are identified with certain distinguished religions or ethnic groups, are being gradually dropped.
The enemy is becoming more and more of “anyone,” prompting measures of surveillance and preemption targeting the same.
They may not even know it themselves, but through a diffuse process of “radicalization” change from John Doe to Muhammed Atta at some future point in time.
I could be sitting here all Caucasian, middle class, religiously indifferent and with bBody bBuilding as my main interest in life.
However, the government knows that I am constantly subjected to so many influences beyond its control, so many channels affecting my mind and emotions that the Government has not yet approved the content of.
Then, without anyone noticing, in a process parallel to my ordinary life, I get swayed by conspiracy nuts on the internet into believing that USU.S. is a main state sponsoring and conducting terrorism and that the USU.S. Government is using the “War on Terrorism” to curtail civil liberties and shred the Bill of Rights
I then get pissed of off at the USU.S. Government, and finally – maybe after having seeingn protesters being beaten in Seattle by police officers and finding that election results are manipulated routinely – I come to the realization that the regular political system will not work to change anything.
Lastly, I find myself at the crossroad of either going for a life in the mountains as a survivalist recluse resenting the failure of civilization, spending my life suppressing my anger and awareness, or getting educated in ways of using violence to force political change.
The Government would like me never to have to arrive at that crossroad.
Using the creativity of a profit hungry corporate sector, legally relieved of responsibility for anything but the bottom line and smelling the virgin land, politicians ram legal room for exploiting individual’s minds and behavior.
Public opinion and behavior is old stuff – commercial and political interests have been plowing that field with propaganda and advertisement to the point of saturation.
Individual’ perceptions and behavior, on the other hand, laid open for total exploitation now that both needed to be monitored, strategically manipulated and strictly regulated in the name of security.
Ill-defined terms such as “radicalized,”, “extremist,” ,and “suspicious behavior” was are floated and propagated into the official narrative as if on cue by officials of both the public and the private sector sharing the interest in “homeland security.”.
These terms was the loose criteria applied to determine who and what should be treated with vigilance and caution – both by patriotic and concerned citizens as well as the agencies working for the public’s safety.
If these criteria seem too broad and general to guide actions, remember that the preemptive paradigm did not ask for precision.
In addition, it is very beneficial to use broad and sweeping definitions if one wants to avoid being faulted for incorrect actions, should accountability ever become an issue.
In essence, the core argument for overly sweeping criteria revolved around the same old “smoking gun is a mushroom cloud” scenario.
If the guy you missed while being picky about not catching anyone innocent, carried a nuke, wouldn’t you rather sacrifice precision and a few innocent and get him?
Much like Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides, to aide them in coming up with reasons to striking Iraq following 9/11: "Go massive…Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
