(Page 2 of 41) - War Makes the State, but Not As It Pleases: Homeland Security and American Anti-Statism authored by Kroenig, Matthew.

ne of the direct consequences of September 11

was a flurry of proposals to

strengthen the whip hand of the American state.

Indeed, critics of US homeland security

policy have consistently warned against the incautious adoption of police-state tactics,
erosions of civil liberties, and drastic increases in the power of the executive branch.

Now enough time has passed to conclude that the most striking characteristic of the
American state in the wake of the terrorist attacks is, not the way its powers accumulate,
but the way it resists centralized accretions of power. To a surprising extent, initiatives to
counter the terrorist threat by expanding the state’s powers domestically have been
resisted, restrained, or even rejected outright.

This is surprising because the shock of war is thought to be closely associated with the
growth of the state, in the United States and everywhere else.

Yet each proposal to

significantly consolidate or expand state power since September 11

has enjoyed a brief

period of momentum followed by a loss of political support. This pattern has repeated
itself in a variety of areas, from the development of surveillance technology to the
regulation of computer security, from the management of passenger screening at airports
to the detention of terrorist suspects, and from the organization of domestic intelligence
to the surveillance of the US citizenry.

A selection of the proposals to create federal strategies, agencies, and departments to counter the terrorist

threat include: Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept
and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, HR 3162, (USA PATRIOT ACT) 24 October 2001; Homeland
Security Act of 2002, H.R. 5005. 22 November 2002; Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001.
S.1447, 16 November 2001; Military Order of 13 November 2001. Detention, Treatment, and Trial of
Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism; Bill to establish a Homeland Intelligence Agency
(HIA), S. 410, short title “Foreign Intelligence Collection Improvement Act of 2003,” introduced 13
February 2003; President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, “National Strategy to Secure
Cyberspace,” draft released September 18, 2002; and the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness
Program.

Popular books that takes this position are James Bovard, Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom,

Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (New York: Palgrave, McMillan. 2003); Robert O’Harrow, No
Place to Hide: Our Emerging Surveillance Society (New York: Free Press, 2005); Major media outlets
such as the Washington Post and the New York Times have written countless news stories and editorials
about the expansion of executive power under the Bush administration including: Editorial, “A Travesty of
Justice,” New York Times,16 November 2001, A24; Editorial, “Justice Deformed: War and the
Constitution,” New York Times, 2 December 2001, Section 4, 14; William Safire, “You are a Suspect,”
New York Times, 14 November 2002, A35; Editorial, “Too Much Power,” Washington Post, 4 January
2004; Michael Powell. “No Choice, but Guilty,” Washington Post, 29 July 2003; The ACLU has issued
dozens of action items, position papers, and press releases available at the ACLU website on a perceived
government assault on civil liberties including: “ACLU Calls on President Bush to Disavow New Cyber-
Spying Scheme That Seeks to Put Every American Under Scrutiny,” 14 November 2002, available at
http://www.aclu.org. Conservative politicians have even sounded warning bells. Congressman Ron Paul
(R. Tex) issued a number of speeches, statements, and press releases including “Police State USA,” Texas
Straight Talk: A Weekly Column, 10 August 2004, http://www.house.gov/paul; and “Is America a Police
State?” statement on the floor of the House of Representatives, June 27, 2002.

Recent works on the relationship between war and state building are Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise of

the State: The Military Foundations of Modern Politics (New York: Free Press, 1994); Charles Tilly,
Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990. For a discussion of crisis and state growth in the
United States see Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American
Government, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

This paper focuses on the state’s mobilization strategies and its regulatory and investigative powers.

However, the state’s extractive powers have not expanded in the wake of September 11

either; the Bush

administration has not raised taxes or reinstated conscription, though it has controversially extended tours