Re:President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
by cryoshon on Monday November 10, 2014 @12:24PM
(#8584829)
In the eyes of the public, I think that it was very much believably about terrorism-- people have internalized the false maxims that security must be sought, and that liberty must be traded to get security. This wasn't really a popular trope before the anti-terrorist propaganda came along.
I agree with you when you say that it was never about terrorism but rather increasing executive power, though. There certainly was a trend toward increased surveillance for many years before, but the entrance of surveillance into the new world-dominating media of the internet is a story in and of itself, I think.
Not if you were paying attention to any of the players involved before 9/11. Or even after for that matter.
That 9/11 was used as a pretext for things the people involved wanted for other reasons and had been seeking for years (in some cases decades) without any connection to terrorism was pretty obvious. These were in some cases the very same people that were openly upset while serving in the Ford Administration against the legislative constraints that were placed in the wake of abuses by Nixon.
It was never believably about terrorism, it was always about restoring overwhelming executive power.