From the outside in: Part I

I'd never been out of the country for so long before this past year in Brazil, and being back has allowed me a clearer vision of the US. It's kind of like Google Earth: sometimes, if you zoom in too far, everything gets blurry, but once you zoom out a bit, everything coming into focus.

One of the things I've noticed is how militarized public security has come (at least in New York). After 9/11, it was scary but seemed like a logical reaction, but now, seven years later, it creeps me out. It seems like people have gotten used to it: dozens of uniformed cops at subway stations, National Guard soldiers in uniform with sniper rifles at Grand Central, and signs everywhere urging people "If you see something, say something." Instead of making me feel safe, it has just made me incredibly paranoid.

With all of the measures put into place after 9/11, like the Patriot Act and expanded powers for police and government authorities, I don't feel any safer. Though I know a lot of what goes on is behind the scenes, things we will never see or know, I can't help but feel insecure.

On the other hand, it also seems to me that the US government's reaction to 9/11 was much like the reaction of parents when their teenager sneaks out of the house and has something terrible happen to her. The parents ground her, barely let her out on her own, and never really trust her again. (not based on personal experience, thankfully) I feel that a lot of the government's policies about immigration, airport security, and surveillance have been over the top and too late. The worst has happened and we can't un-do it. And now, with these secretive new policies, the government feels more like Big Brother than a protector.

In short, post 9/11 security measures have made me feel a lot worse. Oddly, I feel much safer taking the Metro in Rio than I do the subway in New York. I can ride in peace without feeling completely paranoid.

Comments

[Priyanka]

I think some of this applies more to New York than the rest of the US, but I still know what you mean. When I landed in the Houston airport, every five minutes there was a reminder that the terror alert was at orange. All I could think was literally...WTF?! In Brasil I had forgotten all about the intense, color-coded paranoia that surrounds terrorism in the US.