Safe?

Hello All:

A quiet Tuesday is in store today.  The May showers are still inducing a case of laziness however, I did manage to go out for a run this morning and get caught in a sudden burst of rain.  Oh well.  If all goes well, I might go out a little later and finally get those piercings I've been wanting.  It's exciting and cheeky at the same time.  I figured this is part of my way of acknowledging that I'm finally finished with school.  I also have to start saving up for the tattoos.

I'm sitting at one of my local coffee establishments and I'm noticing a security guard.  This is a bit of a new development.  I don't know why he's here but it's a bit disconcerting.  Usually when I go to the local coffee places no there's guard standing by the door.  He seems like a friendly sort.  Perhaps he was hired in response to the homeless people coming and making trouble.  My other thought wonders off to the Boston Marathon Bombing a few weeks ago.

The bombings really cast a black shadow on the way we use public space in America.  A recent Time magazine cover article discussed whether or not we're truly safe from enemies within (http://www.time.com).  The truth is that we've been so worried about enemies without that our government has given short shrift to individuals who plot acts of terrorism within our own borders.  It's a scary thought that the guy sitting next to you on the metro could be a bomber.  I think it's part of what Hannah Arendt called the "banality of evil."  In the United States, we hold our ability to move freely within public spaces dearly.  We also hold dearly our civil liberties that were clearly and eloquently spelled out in the Constitution.  Thus the challenge becomes how to balance our civil liberties with detecting and preventing domestic terrorism.  It's a fine balancing act because on the one hand, we want to make sure that our public spaces and events are accessible while on the other, a recent poll revealed that Americans are willing to give some of their civil liberties to prevent domestic terrorism.  A very fine line to walk.  Countries such as Israel and Turkey have found a way to negotiate this line by taking certain security precautions such a equipping local authorities with the lates facial recognition technology and close circuit television.  This past Sunday, the American new program "60 Minutes" featured a story about a New Jersey state trooper using the techniques he learned on deployment in Iraq and applying them to community policing.  It seems tob having a good affect.

My point here, is we have to ask ourselves how safe can we feel in the public sphere?  What are we doing to prevent acts of terrorism without trampling civil liberties?  Are we so frightened of a homeless person that instead of acting compassionately we have to have a security guard to keep them away?  I suppose life in the post-9/11 age has cast a black shadow on our lives in subtle and not so subtle ways.