Fortress America : On the Frontlines of Homeland Security--An Inside Look at the Coming Surveillance State

Rating:
Summary: Necessary Discourse
Review: FORTRESS AMERICA is a well written, engrossing account of what we know so far and what COULD happen if forces go unchecked. We are, thankfully, a government of checks and balances and while most of the extreme scenarios in this book may not become a reality, it makes me even more vigilant that small measures (like the Patriot Act) do not snowball into larger issues. The fact remains that the future is even more uncertain than ever and I hope to never live in a country that would put my name on a list (or search my home or detain me or my family or even worse) for buying this book. I want to thank Mr. Brzezinski for exercising his First Amendment rights and would recommend this book to anyone who is concerned about the fate of personal liberties in this country.
I'm sorry to see that Amazon.com has become another political forum, of which maybe we have too many, instead of a book forum. It is hard to separate the two here, but previous reviewers seem to think that the two go hand in hand. Matthew Brzezinski's FORTRESS AMERICA is a necessary look at the COMING (see subtitle) surveillance state. It's not here yet and will hopefully never be here--but to guard against that, Americans have must voice their concerns and let their fears be known. We're not talking about the ragged old man announcing the end of the world with a placard on his back; we're talking about a serious journalist with serious concerns. I, for one, am glad to have read this, whether Mr. Brzezinski's predictions come to light or not. At least someone is watchful and willing to be vocal about things like this--not an easy feat in these days of the Patriot Act.


Rating:
Summary: Timely but Weak
Review: I have this recurring waking nightmare. I'm driving back from a TDY somewhere, and just as I reach the outskirts of Washington DC, there's this brilliant flash and a mushroom cloud engulfs the city. I pull over and stare at the devastation. Then some guy wearing an ACLU pin walks up, slaps me on the back and says, "That's too bad, but cheer up, at least we didn't violate those terrorists' rights."

I think this joke, besides being funny, is a good way to open my review of "Fortress America" because it illustrates my belief that this author, like many others writing about homeland security, just doesn't get it.

There are four reasons why I say this:

1. The conclusions that he draws are excessive. The notion that the US is teetering on the edge of becoming some surveillance state is overblown. The vast majority of Americans live lives completely untouched by things like the Patriot Act (which has proven to be a stupid name for the law). I know that some people are agitated about things like the detentions of a thousand illegal aliens in the wake of September 11. I am not one of them.

2. A major comparison that he draws is off-the-wall. A full chapter of the book is spent on the Israeli response to terrorism. I would respectfully suggest that the Israeli situation (hostile neighbors ringing the country and a
large alienated population of Arabs in Israel and the West Bank) is nothing like that faced by the US. A far better comparison could have and should have been made with the British experience in guarding the Home Islands. For over two decades, they have had to contend with terrorist sleeper cells from the IRA (which is roughly analogous to the threat al-Qaeda poses in terms of tactics --albeit on a much greater level-- to the US).

3. The author engages in sheer speculation. He has a lengthy passage which is essentially him imagining what the "surveillance state" might be like in the future. Yet that's all it is . . . speculation. I would have found it much more useful had he written about how terrorists are currently tracked in the US, instead of engaging in flights of fancy.

4. The author makes errors that betray a shallow understanding of things. He spends some time talking about the phenonmenon of high-resolution commercial imaging satellites like Space Imaging's "Ikonos-2." He draws the conclusion that the primary reason why these commercial platforms is becoming more and more important for the US Intelligence Community is that it will allow the government to monitor its citizens, something that the law
prohibits the use of "national technical means" to do.

This is quite simply idiotic. If he talked with anyone inside the Intelligence Community, he would have learned that the US government is prohibited by law from outsourcing activities that it is prohibited by law from doing itself.

As a 16 year veteran of the Intelligence Community, I can personally attest to the fact that anyone who tried to do this would wind up destroying his or her career and maybe suffer even worse consequences.

Now, I'd like to make a general comment about the literature that's out there about homeland security. The bottom line is that with a few honorable exceptions, it pretty much is terrible. The vast majority of it falls into the category of people arguing in all seriousness that under John Ashcroft, the US is well on its way to becoming a dictatorship.

This is ludicrous. I wish the people who think that Ashcroft is a "Nazi" would read something like William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." If they did, they'd immediately learn that that the post-September 11 US is about as close to being a totalitarian society as Pluto is to the rest of the solar system's planets. Or maybe they could read about life in the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" (aka "North Korea") if they don't like to read history.

(I'm cynical enough to believe that the Democrats opposition to the Patriot Act is largely because of politics. Something tells me that if and when John Kerry gets elected President, he is going to discover that that law, which he voted for, isn't so bad after all. Meanwhile, the Republicans will discover problems with it that they never "knew" existed before. Such is life)

This isn't to say that there are concerns and the possibility for abuses to be committed in the name of security. I for one am glad that the ACLU and people like Nat Hentoff are out there to make sure that if and when it happens, there will be a big fuss. Yet I find it disturbing that too many civil liberatarians apparently refuse to admit that things have had to change since September 11. I know that there's a quote from Benjamin Franklin about people trading freedom for security will wind up with neither. But I think that a corollary to that is that if you get killed because you're unwilling to adjust to the facts on the ground, liberty doesn't mean very much. Or as a Supreme Court judge once famously remarked, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." I think that anyone who is concerned with the uneasy balance of civil liberties with self-defense should keep both quotes in mind and not just one or the other.

Somehow, I think the ACLU --which for example only ended its opposition to the use of metal detectors at airports after September 11 (and only after a fight) -- doesn't do this.

So for now, I'd advise readers to skip this one and stick to the September 11 Commission staff reports.

Rating:
Summary: A Ridiculous, Self-Serving Discourse
Review: The ease with which Mr. Brzezinski criticizes our nation's Homeland Security efforts would be admirable indeed if he would only provide his readers with viable alternative solutions. He chooses not to do so, except to point to Israel as the paragon of national security(???). After picking this book up, hopeful that it would be the first successful author's effort to identify problems and solutions, I was very quickly disappointed in his facile, specious arguments. Brzezinski is a prolific and artful writer who, at the end of the day, has nothing constructive to offer...who excels at writing "think pieces" but has no experience in--or awareness of--the complexities involved in constructing local, state, and national policy (and then synchronizing them so they don't conflict). Perhaps he's done all of this by design...identify random problems, criticize the ongoing effort, produce an alarmist forecast, and then save the solutions for a second volume? That would be a good plan, but somehow I can't help but think Matthew Brzezinski will keep us waiting as he writes another "critical think piece" on something else that touches national nerves, and of course, sells books.