The Quest for Security

The issue of terrorism poses a challenge, not just to this president or this Congress, but to our whole political culture.

The United States is no longer isolated from the rest of the world. We are the target of foreign terrorists who hate America and domestic terrorists who hate government. Just since Bill Clinton became president, we’ve experienced the World Trade Center bombing, in 1993, the Oklahoma City disaster, in 1995, and, this year, the attack on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, a strong suspicion of sabotage in the TWA airline crash and the bombing at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta.

Even before the Olympic Park bombing, almost four Americans in 10 said they were worried that someone in their family would become a victim of a terrorist attack. This feeling of vulnerability is growing. And it’s colliding with another great trend in American politics--distrust of government.

The United States was founded on distrust of government. It’s enshrined in the Constitution, which sets up a weak central government with limited powers. When Americans are threatened by a crisis, however, they’re willing to support a tremendous expansion of government power--as they did during the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War.

Since the 1970s, however, a backlash against big government has set in. In 1958, three-quarters of Americans said they trusted the federal government to do the right thing. In 1996, three-quarters say they don’t trust the federal government to do the right thing. Even Democrats have been forced to acknowledge that reality. “The era of big government is over,” Clinton told the nation in January.

So here’s the dilemma: Virtually every measure likely to be effective in protecting Americans against terrorism involves bigger government. More centralized power at a time when Congress is sending programs back to the states. More government spending at a time of deficit reduction. More government regulation at a time when deregulation is the buzzword. More government intrusion at a time when Americans are saying, “Leave us alone.”

How do you expand government power to fight terrorism at a time when Americans are deeply distrustful of government? The answer: with great difficulty. It took Congress a full year after the Oklahoma City bombing to pass the counterterrorism bill. Critics on the left who didn’t want to curb civil liberties joined forces with critics on the right who didn’t want to expand federal law-enforcement authority. The result was a weak and compromised measure that doesn’t seem to be doing any good.

Because distrust of government now runs so deep, it will take a tremendous sense of public urgency--a crisis--to give the government expanded powers to combat terrorism. That, of course, is exactly the way the Founding Fathers wanted it.

Just one day after the Olympic Park bombing, Clinton called on Congress to restore anti-terrorism measures that were dropped from the counterterrorism bill before it was enacted into law. One provision would have expanded FBI authority to wiretap any telephone used by a suspected terrorist. It was opposed by civil libertarians. Another would have required manufacturers of explosives to use chemical markers that make the source of an explosion easier to trace. It was opposed by the gun lobby. A third would have allowed the military to work with federal law-enforcement agencies to combat terrorism. It was opposed by conservatives hostile to federal authority.

Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who worked to weaken the bill last spring, said he thought Congress should “re-approach” the issue in the wake of the TWA disaster and the Olympic bombing. “I believe the more there is terrorism, the more pressure we’re under to find systematic ways to solve it,” Gingrich said. Maybe now the crisis is strong enough to produce action.

Or maybe not. The public’s sense of urgency tends to diminish rather quickly. On the other hand, distrust of government has been growing for 30 years. If people don’t want to give more power to government, what else can they do to cope with the threat of terrorism?

The answer: private solutions. Exactly what Americans have been doing to cope with the threat of crime--another issue where they don’t trust government to protect them. More and more people live in walled and gated communities and guarded buildings. Private security forces now outnumber public police officers. People rely on private cars, where they feel more secure, not public transit.

They prefer home entertainment to public theaters and celebrations. They shop at private malls with secure and controlled environments instead of chaotic and dangerous downtowns. They use private beaches and parks rather than public spaces--spaces like, say, Centennial Olympic Park.

In short, the trend that has been going on in this country for 30 years will accelerate: a turning away from public life. If the government cannot assure security and control, people say, we will provide it for ourselves.

Of course, there are situations where people have no choice but to rely on government. Airline safety, for instance. Cheap and convenient air transportation has defined a new way of life--and of business--in this country. But airline disasters create deep public anxiety. When you take an airline trip, you surrender control. You put your life and your property under the control of others.

People will take more risks with traffic safety than with airline safety. Notice how almost no one objected to raising the highway speed limit? People feel they have more control of the risks when they drive their car. When they fly, however, they have to trust the airline, and the federal government, to guarantee their safety.

Last week’s news from Atlanta raises a more disturbing prospect. A security guard hired by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games is a suspect in the bombing in Olympic Park. Private security forces are no better than the police. Probably worse, since hiring standards are lower. A frightening question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who’s guarding the guards?

If a catastrophe makes Americans feel anxious and insecure, they want their leaders to reassure them that someone is in control of the situation. President Ronald Reagan conveyed that reassurance masterfully. He told the country in 1986, after a U.S. serviceman was killed in a terrorist attack, “When our citizens are abused or attacked anywhere in the world on the direct orders of a hostile regime, we will respond so long as I’m in this Oval Office.”

One of the first things Rudolph W. Giuliani did when he became mayor of New York, in 1994, was to clean up the graffiti on the subways and get “squeegee men” off the streets. Those actions had an enormous effect on public confidence. When passengers see subway cars covered with graffiti, when motorists are confronted by bums trying to wash their windows, they get the sense that no one is in control. The government has no authority. It produces a deep sense of public insecurity. Everyone feels vulnerable.

In the short term, the sudden shift of the national agenda to terrorism will help the incumbent. It focuses national attention on the president at a time when the challenger, Bob Dole, desperately needs attention. Only the president can act.

And he’s trying to do just that. Clinton reclaimed the crime issue by taking small measures that make people feel more secure--a waiting period for handgun purchases, a law requiring notification of sexual offenders, teen curfews. By calling on Congress to revisit the counterterrorism bill, he’s showing that he can do something. The president called Olympic Park “the symbol of our determination to stand against terrorism, domestic or foreign, and to do everything we can to combat it.” Gingrich’s reply: “Give us a few days to sort all this out.” It can’t take the year it took to pass the counterterrorism bill.

The long-term impact, however, is more problematic for the president. When people vote to reelect the incumbent, they’re expressing confidence in the status quo. If voters feel things aren’t going well in the country--if they feel insecure and vulnerable--that can’t be good news for incumbents. In 1992, the issue was economic security. It brought down George Bush. This year, the issue could be physical security--crime, airline safety, terrorism. It poses just as great a danger to Clinton’s reelection.