Description

A friend wanted to take a picture of a new multi-story federal building being constructed. Still without its facade, the rows of lights on the many floors were artistic. At twilight one day, he was lining up the shot when a policeman told him he couldn't take any pictures that included building entrances or security features.

My girlfriend and I experienced something similar. While taking photos of the train station in Harrisburg to accompany a poem (which was set in the station) to be published in a local book, we were approached by a guard telling us that we weren't allowed to take pictures in the train station. We were fortunate. The guard was reasonable. He let us continue after we explained what we were doing, with his parting words to the effect of "don't make me regret trusting you."

I am appalled at the sense of intrusion into average Americans' everyday lives - their rhythm of living while engaging in innocuous behavior. Average Americans are regarded as suspicious and are challenged by authority - even by other average Americans, in this imposed security climate - while engaged in innocent activities. How can that ambiance of oppressiveness and restriction for EVERYONE be justified? Especially when people with real terroristic motives wouldn't be obvious about their actions even WITH these measures! If someone wanted to take a picture of security features on a building for terroristic reasons, the person could easily do it without being noticed.

Such blanket security measures can become oppressive to those who are at risk of terrorism. If they are not effective to screen out the real threat anyway, why put average Americans through all of that?

A new term seems to have been coined for this: securitarianism. This is relevant to the post-9-11 freedom vs security debate.

When did the term "Securitarianism " come into existence? Maybe beginning with this article: www.alternet.org/story/17316/? No online dictionary that I can find has this word in it. A Google search provides links to articles that use the term and give some idea of its meaning.

Here are some brief characteristics of the term, pulled from various online articles:

"Securitarianism corrodes democracy while acting in its name." (Quoted from here: www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID...)

"Terror destroys the rhythms of everydayness. Simple acts like shopping for vegetables, visiting a bazaar, going to the cinema, dropping your kids to school, catching a bus becomes uncertain activities. Terrorism creates a kind of black magic which disempowers everydayness including everyday rituals, performances and technologies. Democracy loses out to terror when it abandons its rituals of everydayness." (Quoted from here: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...

"[T]he 'security measures' suggested by the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies, have pierced into personal spaces, crept into workplaces and schools and seeped through the walls of private homes. The integration of these [security] measures into daily routines is part of a phenomenon that we might call securitarianism, a combination of security and totalitarianism that affects the entire fabric of society and reaches into every corner of our lives." (Quoted from here: www.alternet.org/story/17316/.)

"Over-securitarianis m' does not guarantee safety, but does it block normal people?" (Quoted from page 102 of this online document: www.diplomacy.bg.ac.yu/pdf/visa_poli...

Finally... a word that conveys all of what has been progressively more [fill in the word - something between irksome to infuriating]: securitarianism.

And I won't even go into the torture definition and its legality - let alone its ethics.

You know... for me, it's got nothing to do with about George Bush personally, or with the politcal party in office. If a Democrat were doi