Harrowing holidays
An upgraded terror warning lent a paranoid atmosphere to the holidays in the US. Sharif Abdel-Kouddous reports from New York
The United States was thrown into high alert for the holidays as the Orwellian- sounding Department of Homeland Security upped the nation's warning level to Code Orange days before Christmas.
"Threat indicators are perhaps greater now than at any point since 11 September," warned Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in late December. Ridge raised the terror level to its second highest level citing intercepted intelligence "chatter" indicating possible strikes in major US cities. The effects of his announcement quickly resonated throughout the country.
In New York's Times Square, the elevated terror warning began rolling gravely across a giant news ticker. On the sensationalistic Fox News, the words "Terror Alert: High" were permanently displayed in orange lettering in the bottom left corner of the screen, like a severe weather warning. Air travel would be most affected by the Code Orange announcement.
Six Air France flights bound for Los Angeles over Christmas were cancelled because the US said they contained passengers who were listed as suspected terrorists. It later turned out that these so-called "suspected terrorists" included a five-year-old boy, an elderly Chinese woman and a Welsh insurance agent.
A Mexican airliner also bound for Los Angeles was ordered to turn around when US authorities determined passengers had not been thoroughly screened.
In London, the passengers of a British Airways (BA) flight to Washington peered wearily at airport monitors after two days of cancellations on orders from the US authorities. When BA Flight 223 was finally allowed to take off on the third day, it was held up on the tarmac for more than three hours before getting the "all clear". That same day, a BA service between London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was called off.
"For many years to come we are going to be living in an age where there is going to be a heightened state of alert," Alistair Darling, the British transport secretary, told BBC Television. "Sometimes it will be quite severe," he added.
Severe may be an understatement. The US government is now pushing forward a highly controversial screening programme known as CAPPS 2 that may be in place as soon as next month. Under the system, airlines will be forced to hand over detailed passenger information to the government. Federal airport screeners would then do extensive background checks on each passenger who would be scored with a number and a colour that ranks their "perceived threat" to the aircraft.
Secretary Ridge also ordered foreign airlines to place armed air marshals on some flights to and from the US. Airlines that refuse to comply will be barred from landing in the US.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents international airlines, spoke out against the order. "The best line of defense is on the ground... and once a dangerous person is on board, it's already a defeat in itself," said an IATA spokesman.
The tightening measures do not end there. A number of international flights arriving in the US over the holidays were shadowed by F-16 fighter jets in a chilling reminder that since the 11 September attacks US fighter pilots patrolling American air space are given authority to shoot down any airliner that deviates from its course and fails to respond to their orders.
The crackdown peaked on New Year's Eve as flights were banned over New York City, Chicago and Las Vegas and Black Hawk military helicopters hovered over Manhattan's Times Square.
But the general state of hysteria was not only restricted to the skies. Authorities across the country scrambled to boost security efforts in response to the elevated warning level. Surface-to-air missiles were deployed around Washington, state troopers rode on New York commuter trains, and Los Angeles International Airport prohibited curbside drop-offs or check-ins, instead requiring passengers to unload in the airport's parking garages. And this was just the beginning.
In an unprecedented move, the FBI demanded Las Vegas hotels turn over the names, addresses and personal identification information of everyone who booked a room around the New Year's holiday. Newsweek, which broke the story, said when one large hotel refused to comply the government subpoenaed the records.
"What we seem to be witnessing at this point is a move on the part of the government to keep tabs on what everyone is doing all the time, which has serious civil liberties implications," said Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the Nevada Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Bush administration's thirst for control continued with the launching of a massive new Department of Homeland Security initiative to record the comings and goings of some 24 million visitors to the United States.
The innocuously named US-VISIT programme requires foreign visitors -- largely from countries in Central and South America, Africa and Asia -- with non-immigrant visas to be photographed and fingerprinted. The system has already begun to affect US foreign relations for the worse, with a Brazilian judge ordering officials in his country to begin photographing and fingerprinting American visitors, resulting in delays of up to nine hours for US travellers to Brazil.
Brazil denies it is retaliating against US policy, but the judge's order contained virulent rhetoric, calling the US programme "absolutely brutal, threatening to human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis".
Even the hallowed public medium of the Internet is being infiltrated. The FBI and the US Justice Department recently asked the Federal Communications Commission to give the government the ability to eavesdrop on all voice conversations carried across the Internet.
But the most bizarre move must be the FBI's warning to 18,000 law enforcement organizations to be on the lookout for people carrying almanacs. Why almanacs? Because -- according to the FBI -- the facts they contain may be used by terrorists "to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning".
In the wake of the Code Orange alert, US officials are coming under increasing criticism for wreaking havoc on international air travel and infringing on civil liberties at home. They defend their actions by arguing that the stepped-up security measures may have deterred those willing to strike the US.
"When you prevent something, you may never know you prevented it," a Homeland Security official told Newsweek.
As the world welcomes 2004, who knows what cryptic state logic holds in store for those living in or visiting the land of the free.
