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Running head: 9/11 & UNCERTAINTY

Did the Effects of 9/11 Cause More Uncertainty in the U.S.? Erin N Freeze University of North Carolina at Charlotte

9/11 & UNCERTAINTY A couple years ago, I went to New York City for the first time ever and to say I was excited was definitely an understatement. I was beyond ecstatic. However, the fear of being

placed in a situation similar to the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack in NYC was in the back of my mind and it scared me, a lot! Though once we got into the city, I felt surprisingly calm and safe. With numerous officers everywhere and a well-lit NYC Police building in the middle of Times Square, I didnt feel like I needed to be scared. Another reason was in order to visit the 9/11 memorial pools as well as the Statue of Liberty, you had to go through a TSA Airport Style Security Screening. But this made me wonder, is this tough of a screening to visit a statue or memorial and this many police officers really necessary? Are these people really that afraid of a 9/11 repeat in the city? Are they trying to control the city? Ever since 9/11, we know that several laws and regulations have been put into place throughout the country. Homeland Security is the biggest establishment created as a result of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. There are three primary missions of this department. The first is to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States. Second, is to reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism. Last but not least, minimize the damage, and assist in the recovery, from terrorist attacks that do occur within the United States.(Homeland Security, 2002.) Another formation as a result of the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack is the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which was created through the Homeland Security Department. Their role is to strengthen the security of the nations transportation systems and ensure the freedom of movement for people and commerce.(About TSA, 2014.) So, what do they do to insure protection? One of the most well-known example of TSA is Airport Security. They put in place several layers of security at airports to ensure the security of the traveling public and the Nations transportation system. We are most associated with the

9/11 & UNCERTAINTY airport checkpoints that the Transportation Security Officers operate, however, that is only one

layer of many in place to protect aviation. Below, is a chart showing the many layers of the U.S. Aviation Security (Layers of U.S. Aviation Security [chart], 2014.)

Each one of these layers alone is capable of stopping a terrorist attack, for example. A terrorist who has to overcome the multiple security layers in order to carry out an attack is more likely to be pre-empted, deterred, or to fail during the attempt. (Layers of Security, 2014.) So, is all this protection really necessary or are we as a society over exaggerating the need for protection? Benjamin H. Friedman is a doctoral candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a research fellow in defense and homeland security studies at Cato Institute. He wrote an essay Managing Fear: The Politics of Homeland Security which was featured in the Political Science Quarterly Journal in 2011. Dr. Roxane Cohen Silver is a Professor of Psychology and Social Behavior, Medicine, and Public Health. She specializes

9/11 & UNCERTAINTY in coping with traumatic events, stress, social psychology, and health psychology. She wrote An Introduction to 9/11: Ten years later that was featured in the American Psychologist Journal also in 2011. Friedman states that Americans want more Homeland Security than they need as a

result of two things. First, cognitive biases cause people to worry more about terrorists than they should and therefore demand more protection and secondly, US citizens information about terrorism comes largely from politicians and government organizations with an interest in reinforcing excessive fears. (Friedman, 2011, p. 77) Silver suggests that the attacks of 9/11 did far more than destroy buildings and kill thousands of innocent people. They interrupted our routine pattern across the U.S. and shattered a sense of security and perceptions of invulnerability among residents in the United States. (Silver, 2011, p. 427) Friedman talks about how in most of the United States, the danger of terrorism is statistically nonexistent or near it, however, the results from a July 2007 Gallup poll suggests that the American public does not share that view. The poll found that 47 percent of the American public were very or somewhat worried that they or someone in their family would become a physical victim of terrorism. The poll also suggested three things. One, Americans are overly afraid of terrorists. Two, 9/11 seems to have caused a spike in fear that eased after a few months but stayed higher than reality merited. Three, most Americans do not use the evidence of terrorist weakness, the years without attack, to update their beliefs. (Friedman, 2011, p. 83) Cognitive Psychology tells us that people rely too heavily on initial impressions of risk and discount later information, a process called anchoring. We prematurely assume a few pieces of data represent a trend and avoid reevaluating, fitting new data to a theory rather than vice versa. (Friedman, 2011, p. 88) To Silver, The goals are terrorism are inherently psychological in nature. Terrorists seek to create disruption by instilling fear and anxiety that leads to wide-ranging

9/11 & UNCERTAINTY social, political, psychological, and economic consequences. (Silver, 2011, p. 427) Friedman

agrees because of how humans are wired, terrorism creates almost a perfect storm for provoking fear and overreaction, which is its point. (Friedman, 2011, p. 89) Friedman thinks that the fear or terrorism is a bigger problem than terrorism itself. See, terrorism is not named for the violence but the emotion it provokes. Also, the defenses we mount against terrorists, such as Homeland Security and TSA, often heighten our fears of them. (Friedman, 2011, p.78) Humans have exaggerated fear and it is psychological biases that cause people to overestimate terrorisms danger. (Friedman, 2011, p.86) He considers that people overestimate the odds of events or scenarios because they can picture it. Events become cognitively available when they are one, two, or all three of these things. First, when events are recent. Secondly, when events create memorable images. Lastly, when events receive great publicity. Still today, the images of the collapsing World Trade Center remains unforgettable for most Americans. Politicians and the media tend to talk about foreign attack quite often, which keeps the risk cognitively available for most Americans. Therefore, they see it as more likely to happen than probability merits. (Friedman, 2011, p. 89) Once again, I ask myself if these departments in our government are helping or making things worse. Without Homeland Security and the TSA, would we be less afraid of another terrorist attack happening? When I think of these departments, it makes me feel like were expecting any kind of terrorism to occur any minute, so I agree with Benjamin Friedman when he states that the defenses against terrorism heighten our fears of it. Does this mean that the United States government is trying to control what happens in the future regarding attacks on the country and is this need for control scaring us? I asked several of my peers both in my class

9/11 & UNCERTAINTY and outside of class what their definition of the word control is. All of my responses were

different but some were very similar. A few of the answers I got that I found very interesting are: -Having the power to manipulate and usually making something go into your favor. -Guidelines for something. -Having mastery or direction over something (an object, feeling, person, etc.). -Being responsible for something. -To have complete awareness/authority over an action or situation. These statements about what control is are very different, but do they convey the same meaning when trying to prevent a situation? I think they do. For a long time, citizens of the United States have always wanted to be in control of what happens, and ever since 9/11, that control is slowly slipping from their hands not only in protection, but for various other things. For protection specifically, we want to make sure that were going to be safe. Honestly, that is very hard to do, so with factors such as the creation of Homeland Security and TSA, we want more and more of it because we feel like were losing that security blanket of feeling safe. However, weve controlled and obtained what I consider an excessive amount of security than what we actually need. Like in the studies I looked at, I too believe the dangers of terrorism are almost close to nonexistent and something that happens very rarely. But, we as a society have forced ourselves to believe it happens a lot more often than it really does because we keep enforcing the need for more security. This leads me to conclude through the research and my own analysis that yes, the effects of 9/11 has heighted the amount of uncertainty and fear that we have and need in the United States when it comes to solving and dealing with problems that evolve from terrorism.

9/11 & UNCERTAINTY References

About TSA. (2014). Transportation Security Administration. Retrieved April 27, 2014, from http://www.tsa.gov/about-tsa Friedman, B. H. (2011). Managing Fear: The Politics of Homeland Security. Political Science Quarterly, 126(1), 77-106. Homeland Security. (2002). Act of 2002. Retrieved April 27, 2014, from http://www.dhs.gov/homeland-security-act-2002 Layers of Security. (2014, January 14). Transportation Security Administration. Retrieved April 30, 2014, from http://www.tsa.gov/about-tsa/layers-security Silver, R. C. (2011). An Introduction to 9/11: Ten years later. American Psychologist, 66(6), 427-428. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Transportation Security Administration. (2014). Layers of U.S. Aviation Security [chart].Retrieved April 30, 2014, from http://www.tsa.gov/about-tsa/layers-security

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