the steps that the administration is asking americans do to as part of the war on terror - are all rooted in fear.
we take off our shoes at airport check-in, because we fear someone with a shoe bomb boarding the place.
we fill out additional forms when doing banking transactions, because we fear a domestic terror network being funded by financial transactions we cannot track.
and on and on. all of it is rooted in fear of the unknown, fear of what might POSSIBLY be security risks. Is that all hysteria? Is the Patriot Act hysteria? I don't think so.
you can't talk about these kinds of things non-stop, have Tom Ridge out there asking people to buy plastic sheeting and duct tape, and then turn port operations over to the UAE with a willy-nilly "trust us" as the basis for accepting it. no way. that's why this bombed politically with 80% of americans.