Don't Panic Bruce Ackerman Like it or not, terrorist attacks will be a recurring part of our future. The balance of technology has shifted, making it possible for a small band of zealots to wreak devastation where we least expect it - not a plane next time, but perhaps an atomic bomb in a suitcase or a biotoxin in the water supply. The attack of 11 September is the prototype of similar events that will litter the 21st century. We should be looking on it in a prognostic spirit: what can we learn that will permit us to respond more intelligently the next time around?
If American reaction is any guide, we urgently require new constitutional concepts to deal with the protection of civil liberties. Otherwise, a downward cycle threatens. After each successful attack, politicians will come up with repressive laws and promise greater security - only to find that a different terrorist band manages to strike a few years later. This disaster will, in turn, create a demand for even more repressive laws, and on and on. Even if the next half-century sees only four or five attacks on the scale of 11 September, this destructive cycle will prove devastating to civil liberties by 2050. [snip]
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