Terrorism

The congressional Joint Inquiry into September 11 is recommending revising government information policies not only to promote information sharing among government agencies, but also to expand public access to government information, because ""an alert and committed American public" could be "the most potent weapon" in the war against terrorism.

By stating time and again that terrorism insurance is a jobs bill, the White House "delivered a big plum to the insurance industry," writes Steven Rosenfeld. Now taxpayers are obligated to cover the industry's back by paying up to $300 billion if another terrorism attack occurs -- even though there's no evidence that the legislation will protect a single worker's job. "It has nothing to do with reality," the former top federal insurance regulator said earlier this fall, when discussing his studies examining the issue. "It was hype back then and it's still hype."

The Homeland Defense Bill currently working its way through Congress adds a new exemption to the Freedom of Information Act, protecting the secrecy of information that companies submit voluntarily to the government. Supporters say the exemption makes it easier for companies to share information with the government to assist the "war on terrorism." Critics, like Rep.

"I'm astonished that anyone's astonished" at the failures of the American intelligence community to detect or prevent terrorism, writes information guru John Perry Barlow. "After a decade of both fighting with and consulting to the intelligence community, I've concluded that the American intelligence system is broken beyond repair, self-protective beyond reform, and permanently fixated on a world that no longer exists." How could it be otherwise, he asks, in institutions that were designed to be paranoid and secretive?