| Homeland security
will become a major industry. No amount of planning can possibly effectively prevent all
attacks, but this industry sells confidence. |
| Teams of federal
marshals join local sheriffs and state police, carry automatic weapons, guard nuclear
facilities, major office buildings, hotels and government buildings. Crews set up steel
reinforced concrete and steel barriers. |
| Camouflaged military
police stake out elevated and subway lines. Surveillance helicopters hover over secretive
areas. High altitude AWAC surveillance aircraft equipped with ultra-high tech infrared,
optical and RF devices monitor refineries, nuclear facilities, cities, rural training
camps and safe houses. |
| Shopping malls are
infiltrated by bomb-sniffing dogs and officers roam corridors, parking lots and access
roads. Metal barricades over 6 feet high direct foot traffic. During all but the busiest
hours shopping malls are eerily quiet. Shopping becomes a task requiring planning and is
to be completed quickly in order to not remain in malls too long. Tourists no longer place
malls on their lists of fun stop-offs. |
| Hotels provide
special security for guests, but will not disclose details. The Coast Guard patrols
beaches, major shipping ports, inland lakes and harbors. and boards commercial ships at
random for security checks. |
| Officials prepare and
plan to shut down Interstate highways in emergency situations. Officials begin erecting
temporary curbing on major highways for emergency vehicles to pass. Special routings are
developed for emergency crews and busloads of special nuclear/chemical/biological clean
up. |
| A massive undertaking
rules daily lives when shopping, commuting, vacationing. Detrimental impact cannot
possibly be held in check. Coordination of federal, state and local defensive patrols,
offensive security and emergency workers will be required. |
| The Federal Aviation
Administration will ban corporate and private flights at various times. Only regularly
scheduled commercial flights, law enforcement, military and emergency medical flights will
be allowed within various areas at unpredictable times. |
| Schools will be
guarded with special care. Students will rehearse emergency plans and logistics as they
used to rehearse for their school plays. |
| Homeland security
will become a major industry. Billions of dollars will be expended on work that is
counterproductive to the American free and open life style. Manpower and money will be
redirected toward prevention of terrorist-invoked disasters rather than manufacturing and
providing consumer goods and services. |
| Bin Laden and
his gang hide in their holes as we secure ourselves in a fortress with porous walls. This
is not our way of life and we must eliminate their ability to threaten us --- before they
arrive in our neighborhoods. |
