When one maniac can wipe out a city of twenty million with a microbe developed
in his basement, a new approach to law enforcement becomes necessary. Every
citizen in the world must be placed under surveillance. That means sky-cams at
every intersection, computer-mediated analysis of every phone call, e-mail, and
snail-mail, and a purely electronic economy in which every transaction is
recorded and data-mined for suspicious activity.
We are close to achieving this goal. Some would say that human liberty has been
compromised, but the reality is just the opposite. As surveillance expands,
people become free from danger, free to walk alone at night, free to work in a
safe place, and free to buy any legal product or service without the threat of
fraud. One day every man and woman will quietly earn credits, purchase items for
quiet homes on quiet streets, have cook-outs with neighbors and strangers alike,
and sleep with doors and windows wide open. If that isn't the tranquil dream of
every free civilization throughout history, what is?




Symbolic attacks -- the Statue of Liberty bombing, the desecration of Soviet War
Memorial in Berlin, the department-store shooting-sprees on Orchard Road in
Singapore -- are the recourse of the weak. They serve only to call attention to
a group or cause that is of no more than marginal interest to the public.
But what distinguishes true terrorist activity is its gradual escalation towards
genuine acts of war. Fringe groups now have access to technology that allows
direct assaults on governments, including the classic trio of nuclear,
biological, or chemical weaponry (NBC). But aside from direct assaults on a
nation and its people, indirect attacks can cause considerable collateral damage
-- rogue software can disrupt financial markets, communications, and military
operations, while encryption programs allow terrorists to coordinate smuggling
operations in secret right over the Net! Drugs, guns, illegal immigrants, and
even heavy equipment such as armored vehicles and cruise missiles are routinely
traded across borders, aided and abetted by such software.
UNATCO -- the first organization with the technology, manpower, and authority to
cope with such threats -- is an idea that is long overdue.




The question must be asked: is the global rise of terrorism a haphazard response
to a decimated economy or is there a pattern? Does UNATCO face coordinated
ideological opposition?
Some groups -- Silhouette in France, for instance -- have declared a "Meme War,"
or "war of meanings" in their terminology. They spread email and pamphlets that
lampoon the U.N.'s proposal for a one-world democracy, a tedious exercise in
rudimentary propaganda. With sophistries and doublespeak, they portray "freedom"
as "obedience," "democracy" as "tyranny," and UNATCO as the perpetrator of
terrorism -- an idea as shocking as it is reprehensible.
Other organizations, such as the self-proclaimed revolutionary National
Seccessionist Forces (NSF) in the U.S., claim allegiance to the Meme War, but
are in fact no better than common criminals. They desire territory and wealth at
the expense of society at large. Their "civil war" is merely a smokescreen for
criminal activity.
Any population can be quickly turned against such "revolutionaries" simply by
educating them about the U.N.'s policies and goals.