LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
W e’re on our way to a new life in a Security-and-Surveillance State. Everything about us will be seen and known. And my greatest fear is that when we arrive in this place of universal visibility and ubiquitous public knowledge of all our private thoughts and deeds... we’ll like it. A Security-and-Surveillance State that is all- seeing and all-knowing could replace religion. Something will. According to the Pew Research Center on Religion and Public Life, only about half of Americans age 18-29 are certain that they believe in any kind of God at all. Central to the concept of God (or gods) in every faith is that He (or They) know exactly what we’re up to at all times and why. This should be terrifying, but most people who are religious – myself included – seem more comforted than frightened by God’s omniscience. Our original Security-and- Surveillance State was a state of grace – a oneness with God. Maybe a oneness with TSA will be just as good. Most Americans pass through airport security more often than they go to church. Comfort with Security-and-Surveillance runs even deeper in the human psyche than religion. There’s Mom. She always knew what I was thinking. “Don’t you even think about it,” she’d say about the fresh-baked cookies before I’d caught a whiff of them. And she always knew what I was doing. She had eyes in the back of her head. She also had all the other eyes of all the other moms in the neighborhood. I’d come home
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American Consequences 7
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