[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 10069]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         SECURITY OVERREACTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, Ian Lustick, a professor of the University 
of Pennsylvania and research fellow at the Independent Institute in 
California, wrote an article in The Hill newspaper a few days ago which 
made a great deal of sense. He wrote this:
  ``Nearly 7 years after September 11, 2001, what accounts for the vast 
discrepancy between the terrorist threat facing America and the scale 
of our response? Why, absent any evidence of a serious domestic terror 
threat, is the war on terror so enormous, so all-encompassing, and 
still expanding? The fundamental answer is that al Qaeda's most 
important accomplishment was not to hijack our planes but to hijack our 
political system. For a multitude of politicians, interest groups, 
professional associations, corporations, media organizations, 
universities, local and State governments, and Federal agency 
officials, the war on terror is now a major profit center, a funding 
bonanza, and a set of slogans and sound bites to be inserted into 
budget, project, grant, and contract proposals.
  ``For the country as a whole, however, it has become a maelstrom of 
waste and worry that distracts us from more serious problems.''
  Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, testified before 
the Senate a few months ago in a way no other Cabinet member probably 
ever has. He essentially said we are spending too much on security and 
should not let an over-exaggerated threat of terrorism ``drive us 
crazy,'' into bankruptcy, trying to defend against every conceivable 
threat. He went on to say: ``We do have limits and we do have choices 
to make. We don't want to break the very systems we're trying to 
protect. We don't want to destroy our way of life trying to save it. We 
don't want to undercut our economy trying to protect our economy, and 
we don't want to destroy our civil liberties and our freedoms in order 
to make ourselves safer.''
  Secretary Chertoff was exactly right. I believe that most Members of 
Congress will vote for almost anything if the word ``security'' is 
attached to it so that they will not be blamed if something bad happens 
later. We should do some things to protect against terrorism, but we 
should not go overboard if we still believe in things like freedom and 
liberty.
  Actually, most security spending is more about money for government 
contractors and increased funding for government agencies than it is 
about any serious threat. Just 3 weeks after 9/11, when security 
requests for money were already pouring in, the Wall Street Journal hit 
the nail on the head in an editorial:
  ``We'd like to suggest a new post-September 11 rule for Congress: Any 
bill with the word 'security' in it should get double the public 
scrutiny and maybe four times the normal wait lest all kinds of bad 
legislation become law under the phony guise of fighting terrorism.''

                              {time}  1830

  The Wall Street Journal was exactly right. Unfortunately, Congress 
has not followed this good advice. But it is just as relevant today as 
it was when it first written.
  Bruce Fein was a high ranking Justice Department official during the 
Reagan administration. He says the Federal Government has, ``inflated 
the international terrorism danger in order to aggrandize executive 
power.'' This is true, in part. Most agencies and departments do 
exaggerate the threats or problems they are confronting to get more 
power. But they primarily do so to keep getting increased 
appropriations.
  Certainly, we need to take realistic steps to fight terrorism. But if 
we gave the Department of Homeland Security the entire Federal budget, 
we still could not make everyone totally safe. In a cost benefit 
analysis, you fairly quickly reach a point in the terrorism threat 
where more spending is almost totally wasted. People are hundreds of 
times more likely to be killed in a wreck or die from a heart attack or 
cancer. We need to spend more on the greatest threats. Also, we need to 
make sure we do not lose our liberty in a search for an illusive 
security.
  Bruce Fein wrote that if the, ``war against international terrorism 
is not confronted with corresponding skepticism, the Nation will have 
crossed the Rubicon into an endless war, a condition that Madison 
lamented would be the end of freedom.''
  Madam Speaker, to sum up, a few people are getting rich at the 
expense of many by claiming that they are trying to increase our 
security. We don't need to make our already bloated Big Brother 
government even bigger just because some company or some bureaucrat 
callously uses the word ``security'' just to get more money and power.

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