NEW YORK - Tourists flock to Times Square for the bright lights and Broadway shows. There they find another spectacle: helmeted police with machine guns patrolling the subway station on the lookout for would-be bombers and gunmen.
CARSON CITY, Nev. - A gunman wielding an AK-47 opened fire on a table of uniformed National Guard members at an IHOP restaurant on Tuesday in an outburst of violence that killed five people, wounded seven others and put Nevada's capital city on high alert.
The Government tells us that we are much safer today than we were ten years ago... the United States has altered the balance between freedom and security, turning an open and casual society into a police-state.
But at what cost in lost liberty and dollars? Civil libertarians fear the era of surveillance and circumspection will become permanent.
The United States has spent an additional $400 billion on security plus $1.3 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before counting interest on the war debt and healthcare for veterans, according to the "Costs of War" research project by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.
The president and police have more power, claiming more authority to spy into the private lives of citizens with less oversight from the courts. Airport security is much more thorough.
Soon after September 11, the U.S. government resorted to two controversial practices in response to threats from abroad -- extraordinary rendition -- the illegal transfer of foreign suspects captured abroad to a third country for detention and interrogation -- and imprisonment of suspected militants captured abroad at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"Ten years later, if we are still in this emergency mindset, then this is now who we are. This is the new normal," said Susan Herman, president of the American Civil Liberties Union. "At some point if you don't reverse that process you really have moved yourself into an Orwellian state."
And, that is exactly where we are. An Orwellian state where no one feels safe. Not even the police and the Government.
The security industry is feeling public opposition to intrusive scans at airports and sees more growth potential in machines that inspect cargo containers and tractor trailers. The problem is we can't afford them.
The invasion of privacy is more unsettling, especially for Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent who face discrimination and have been caught up in the security net.
"It's worse now than it was on September 11, 2002," said Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "I don't see things being dramatically different five to seven years from now."
One prominent civil libertarian blames President Barack Obama for expanding the growth of executive power. Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University's law school, called Obama a "nightmare" who betrayed civil libertarians after campaigning against Bush's approach.
"It's very easy to give up civil liberties but it's very difficult to regain them," Turley said. "For civil libertarians, Barack Obama has proven to be a nightmare. He has made all the arguments previously made by Bush and has gone further in some cases. He has shown very little concern for civil liberties in the area of counterterrorism."
As the attack unfolded in Nevada, officials worried about the violence being more widespread. They locked down the state Capitol and Supreme Court buildings, and put extra security in place at state and military buildings in northern Nevada.
"You go a whole tour in Afghanistan and no one is shot. And you go to IHOP and several are shot," said 31-year-old Sgt. First Class Cameron Anderson of Reno, a Nevada Army National Guard member. "It's a shock. I came to work today and had no idea I'd be driving the chaplain here (to the hospital.)"
The shooter, 32-year-old Eduardo Sencion of Carson City, was born in Mexico and had a valid U.S. passport.
"He's a gentle, kind man who was very helpful to friends and family," witnesses told The Associated Press. "I couldn't venture to guess what would cause him to do something as horrible as this."
Maybe he couldn't get a table at IHOP?
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