The rush for new legislation and policies to neutralize the perpetrators and prevent a repetition of the September 11 attacks have included tightening immigration regulations, increased police powers to hold suspects incommunicado, expanded information gathering, and a stimulus package to offset the economic damage of the attacks. However, it is not clear that these approaches will really target the program; it is also possible that some of the approaches result from vested interests’ taking the opportunity to promote their own agendas in the name of national security. The case against bin Laden as responsible rests on myth, confusion, and hyperbole from the mass media. The probable consequences of the economic and security policies include an increase in the covert-action budgets of the major intelligence services, an increase in military budgets, a series of ugly little wars to settle scores and crush opposition in the name of national security and counterterrorism, pressures to increase the use of fossil fuels, and a return of Afghanistan to feuding fiefdoms based on clan, tribe, and control of contraband rather than a normal government. Resting policies on a sort of blind lashing out at external devils is a dangerous basis for making profound and potentially long-term decisions that will have a crucial impact on national security, criminal law, and social justice. 13 references