There's an interview with Noam Chomsky somewhere in which he talks about his surprise at having his phone (tapped/found can't remember) after attending a protest in the 60s or 70s.

I don't remember the exact details but I remember thinking "wow it really wasn't all that different then" when I saw it.

There were terrorists in 1985. In fact, there was more terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s than in recent decades. It's just that today the fear of terrorism is more exploited for political gain than it was back then.

I think that the plot devices involving terrorism were the most prescient.

When I first saw the film as a young teenager in the 80s, I was fascinated that the terrorists philosophy or demands were never clearly defined beyond "anti-government". Terrorism was portrayed as a regrettable but normal part of life.

Perhaps people who lived through actual terrorist bombing campaigns in British cities can relate to this more, but for me it was a crazy idea that this sort of thing could be normalized to any extent.

And yet here we are.

I thought this scene made it pretty clear that the terrorist attacks in the film were false-flag operations carried out by the government:

                                     JILL
                         Who is this war against, Sam?

                                     SAM
                         Well, terrorists of course.

                                     JILL
                         How many terrorists have you met? 
                         Actual terrorists?

                                     SAM
                         Actual. terrorists? Well... it's 
                         only my first day.

Yeah. I can see that. But it's still implied.

I suppose the government would have considered Harry Tuttle to be a legitimate terrorist, but his motives were ... different.

Yes, I think that was part of the point too.

In any case, I can see someone having the following conversation today:

Citizen: How many terrorists have been apprehended as a result of increased security at airports?

TSA official (if he's being honest): Well, none. But we've only been at it for eighteen years so there's still a chance.

"We're fielding all their strokes, running a lot of them out, and pretty consistently knocking them for six. I'd say they're nearly out of the game."

My impression was that the terrorists didn't exist and the explosions were just due to malfunctioning systems and technology.

> Also, in 1985 the stock villains weren't terrorists

Libyan Terrorists were stock villains in a lot of 1980s entertainment (especially on TV like the A-Team and MacGuyver), including perhaps most notably their very clear presence in 1985 in Back to the Future.

That's a fair point. Still, terrorism was nowhere near as much on the radar then as it is now.

I think it was, it was just a lot more "diverse" on the radar. Terrorism wasn't (and really shouldn't be) considered "one thing", but a spectrum from hijackers to bombers to arsonists, from nationalists to separatists to religious extremists. When people in the 70s/80s used to speak of terrorism there were often more adjectives and synonyms involved.

Jingoism has a hard time with nuance and diversity, so the "War on Terror" (sigh) mentality that terrorists are some how a coordinated force, and "mostly" religious extremists, and who cares what methods they use to promote terror just lump it all together.

Which is to say in metaphor terms, I don't think the number of terrorism "bogeys" on the radar changed, so much as the "friend or foe" system just started using the same color and tag for all of them, instead of somewhat more individual labels. It looks like "more on the radar" because it's easier to spot clusters, but they were there before.

How do you know you escaped surveillance? The government's been doing it to civilians since at least the 1930's.

Most of the technology that makes surveillance easy today (cell phones, the internet, electronic processing of credit card transactions) didn't exist in 1985. The government certainly could have spied on me but it would have been expensive and they would have had no reason to target me. I was nobody. Nowadays surveillance is cheap enough to do it indiscriminately, but it wasn't then.

Escaping surveillance is easy: "forget" your phone in a friend's bag.

And in 1985, you did not have Tor or public wifi allowing you to access the whole world with no effort in an anonymous way.

Look at how terrorists and criminals evade surveillance now: it is incredibly low tech.

> "forget" your phone in a friend's bag.

Are you going to forget your credit cards and ATM cards too? Give up on flying? Driving new cars? Driving in non-rural areas? And good luck finding a job nowadays without a cell phone or an internet connection.

In 1985 I could fly without showing ID to anyone, including the person I bought the ticket from (back then airplane tickets were printed on paper). I could drive anywhere without my license plate being tracked by default and without having to worry about the GPS in my car (because there was no GPS). And I had a reasonable expectation of privacy, enshrined in law, in my phone calls and snail mail correspondence (there was no email). Today all of that is gone.

Also, don't get photographed by anyone else! It's not just our own phones we have to worry about; everyone is more eyes and ears for the man :/

> Also, in 1985 the stock villains weren't terrorists, they were Russians.

They still are.

> > Also, in 1985 the stock villains weren't terrorists, they were Russians.

> They still are.

Or, again, rather. Everything comes around eventually.