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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (12397)	12/2/2001 1:07:29 PM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

the history in this area is one of oscillation between overloose and overtight rules. Basically, everyone reacts against the last perceived major screwup. If that was a security lapse or a missed opportunity to prevent disaster, then we go into supercop mode and authorize feds to poke their noses everywhere. Eventually that leads to really dumb excesses like infiltrating the league of women voters or stuff like that, which gets revealed, causes howls of protest, and generates a reverse reaction in which the feds have to get permission to go to the bathroom. unfortunately, it's not only difficult to break the cycle, but also difficult to implement thorough and sensible bureaucratic reform. so we just all have to hope, basically, that our keystonish cops are somewhat more competent, or lucky, than the terrorists (who have their own problems, of course, and who would drive their own bosses crazy too if they had them). Fixing the CIA is probably even more important than fixing the FBI, but possibly even more difficult. There's an excellent chapter on that issue in the book that Foreign Affairs just put out, How Did This Happen? Terrorism and the New War; I hear they're going to publish it in the magazine as well at some point. Not too encouraging. tekboy@thebook'squitegood,btw,anddefinitelywortharead.com