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PJ: And I think, ultimately, all of this, there are many more programs I could talk about, but ultimately the question that you have to ask is: Are we safer? I mean, because I think that you can't, you can't just dismiss the fear that people have of what happened after September 11th, and it certainly changed the national consciousness about who we were as a nation and how protected we were or were not. And so I think that it's a real fear that people have that led to this hysteria, but the response to that was not, in fact, I believe, was not to make us safer. And I'm not the only one who believes it because if you look at the Justice, Justice Department's own reports, special registration was discontinued, ineffective, cost money, targeted people, discriminatory. It was disbanded. The interviews with the Arab and Muslim men yielded absolutely no links to terrorism. The detentions of twelve hundred Arab and Muslim men yielded no links to terrorism. And you can go through and you can see how none of these things has yielded any links to terrorism. What it has done is it has significantly broken down the trust between those targeted communities and the government, and it's raised the fear level of people in this country about these different communities that were targeted because it really, in a way, it was a PR campaign in the same way that in 1942, if you listen to -- I mean, I've listened to many of those old clips and listening to the news reporters and it's this, again, the same deadly combination of fear and patriotism silencing dissent. And that's really been the same combination that's been occurring since September 11th, is that people felt immediately after September 11th, I knew so many people who went out and bought American flags, Sikh cab drivers. One Sikh cab driver who wore a T-shirt, a stars and stripes T-shirt, and actually ended up being fined because you have to wear a certain uniform to drive a, to drive a taxi, but he was so afraid of being targeted and wanted to show his patriotism and his loyalty to the country by not speaking up or speaking out and not distinguishing himself in any way -- which, of course, is impossible when you're being distinguished by the color of your skin or the religion that you practice.

So there were, I think, many things that have happened since September 11th that were put forward in the name of national security, but we are no safer. And I did a speech about a month ago for Leadership Tomorrow folks and I think there were about 120 people in the room and they started off the day by having people pick a side of the room. You know, this side if you felt safer or this side if you didn't. And it was remarkable. Most people that you talk to in this country feel that America is no safer today than it was before. And I think it begs the question of: Were we ever safe? Really safe? And will we ever really be safe? And what does that mean, because I believe that really, if you want to have safety as a country, what you need to do is build international relationships and collaboration and go at it in a completely different way than the way that we've been pursuing it.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.