Keeping America Safe

The tragedy of Sept. 11 has fundamentally threatened America’s sense of security. If the Pentagon can be attacked, if terrorists can reach Manhattan, is anywhere in America safe? More disturbingly, last week’s attack seemed to be carried out without any severe breaches of normal security procedures. The U.S. government must act swiftly to protect American soil from the danger of future attacks, working not only to prevent a specific duplication of Tuesday’s tragedy, but also to investigate what other measures—consistent with our basic liberties—must be taken to keep Americans safe.

In a press conference last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft stated that the hijackers used knives and cardboard cutters, and that one group may have had a small bomb. Before Sept. 11, it was common for airport security agents to allow passengers to carry uninspected cell phones or small pocket knives with blades up to four inches long. Of the new security measures announced in the wake of the attacks, only the ban on metal knives would have interfered with the recent hijackings. The ending of curbside check-in and the restriction of boarding areas to ticket-holding passengers may serve to inconvenience terrorists, but such measures seem ill-designed to stop them.

The U.S. must take more far-reaching measures to keep its airspace safe. It may choose to draw on the model of the Israeli national airline, El Al, which has long faced the danger of hijacking. Although the airline resists talking about its security measures, it is known to conduct intense questioning and background checks of passengers before they board an aircraft. The pilots are sealed from the rest of the cabin, and armed air marshals are present on every flight.

The costs in time and money of such security measures are immense, and many of this country’s airlines are already struggling financially. Government assistance may be needed to maintain a vibrant air transportation system.

However, the nation also must distinguish between those security measures that make the public feel safe and that actually promote safety. Air marshals may make passengers feel better, but the prospects of a shootout at 39,000 feet—or, even worse, having a marshal’s weapon wrested away from him by hijackers—make the idea less appealing.

In the end, efforts to keep airlines safe will only deal with one of many possible threats. The best way to prevent tragedies like that of Sept. 11 is to obtain better information about the membership and operations of terrorist organizations. Now that the nation has been shown to be vulnerable to terrorist attack on such a catastrophic scale, other groups may be waiting to carry out their own attacks, possibly with chemical, biological or other weapons that are difficult to defend against without an effective intelligence system.

Additionally, new measures may be necessary to secure elements of America’s infrastructure that are typically not thought to be potential targets: bridges, oil pipelines, water, electricity and communications systems, even major Internet exchanges. Just as engineers would never build a bridge without considering the danger of earthquakes, the possibility of terrorism must now be taken into account. To prevent the loss of more innocent lives, a fundamental reassessment of America’s vulnerability to terrorism is in order.

However, the nation must be careful not to compromise its basic values in the pursuit of safety. Some members of Congress are already considering loosened restrictions on telephone and electronic wiretaps. Any such changes should undergo heavy scrutiny. Effective intelligence does not require more invasive government control. There is a delicate balance between serving the public good and treading on civil liberties; Americans are willing to accept inconveniences in the name of security, but few want to give the federal government unrestricted power to pry into their lives. It would be a shame if improvements to the national defense were accompanied by a sacrifice of the liberties that make America’s a society worth defending.