With No Lobby, the People Are Unheard

As we continue to dig, literally and figuratively, through the rubble left by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it is becoming shockingly clear just how much the powers-that-be knew about our country’s vulnerability--and how little they did to ensure our safety.

Less than three months ago, Osama bin Laden released a recruitment video in which he vowed: “It’s time to penetrate America and Israel and hit them where it hurts most.” That warning was enough to cause the Pentagon to place U.S. forces on heightened alert but apparently not enough to get our leaders to plug the massive holes in U.S. airport security.

“We all knew this was going to happen,” says former Federal Aviation Administration special agent Steve Elson. “The Congress knew the whole government structure knew.”

They also knew about the dangerously degraded state of our intelligence-gathering capabilities--particularly our inability to infiltrate terrorist organizations. What are we to make of the FBI’s sudden “Help Wanted” ad, looking for people with a “professional level in Arabic and Farsi”? Did it really just dawn on the agency that having undercover operatives who speak the terrorists’ language might prove helpful?

Why didn’t our leaders react? Could it be because the public interest didn’t have lobbyists offering cash incentives to Congress and the White House to protect the people?

If counter-terrorism had been an industry doling out large contributions to politicians and hiring powerful Washington lobbyists, our political leaders would have leaped into action--pushing through legislation to ensure our airports were secure and our intelligence operations actually collecting intelligence.

The terrorists’ attacks not only exposed how vulnerable our airports are but how vulnerable our system of government is when policy priorities are determined not in response to the public interest but in response to the best-funded interest groups.

In the absence of such a flush lobbying group representing the public good, Congress began its session this winter by tuning its fiddle for the burning of Rome with essential matters like the bankruptcy act, a juicy kiss for the finance industry, which had coughed up $66 million in campaign cash in 2000.

With the benefit of hindsight, shouldn’t the first order of business have been the safety and protection of U.S. citizens? It took thousands of deaths before the package of vital intelligence reforms that Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), introduced last week made it to the head of the legislative line.

If the primary function of government is to protect its citizens, then what happened Sept. 11 was clearly a massive failure of bipartisan leadership. But will these events transform our cash-and-carry political reality? First indications are not promising. Witness the gargantuan bailout package planned for the airline industry. It seems the estimated $50 million a year the industry spends on lobbying--and the $6.8 million it contributed to both parties last election cycle--is paying big-time dividends.

The airlines, in massive trouble long before the attacks, didn’t miss a beat in dispatching their lobbyists to take advantage of our national trauma. Not that this bailout, you understand, will prevent the huge layoffs already announced. In the meantime, as we slide into recession, who’s going to bail out those who will be most affected by it: the 34 million Americans living below the poverty line, the 11 million uninsured children, the millions soon to be pushed off the welfare rolls by time limits just as jobs are drying up?

As we examine the deep flaws in airport security and intelligence-gathering, why not also look at the fundamental flaws in a system of government that determines its priorities in a bazaar of influence peddling?