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Safer

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I firmly believe we are safer. Past incidents of terrorism in the United States have been infrequent. These events, when they occur, are usually more devastating in the US than abroad. Some of them have been orchestrated by our own people (born and bred, not imports) and make it doubly sad. So this does not provide a lot of data to base this opinion on.

I am also defining terrorism as acts against the people of the United States by external foreign nationals. For example the Timothy McVeigh bombing is terrorism, but not what we are talking about in this article.

However, the incidents in other countries clearly show we are "safer" than other places around the world by simple comparison. The UK has had two closely spaced attacks in the last year. England's apparent sedate reaction is only one of the reasons we are safer. The Israelis and Palestinians carry out acts of terrorism on an almost daily basis. So the US really began "safer" and continues to remain that way.

The 9/11 attack woke us up. We were truly the sleeping giant. It shook us to our core and really made us become intimately aware of how vulnerable we had become. We, as a people, became more aware. This is evidenced by the spoiling of the Fort Dix plot by a regular citizen who was aware. People are more sensitized to the kind of behavior or activity that could be harmful to us. The single mother featured on the Today show that spends her spare time trolling on the internet for possible extremist groups. She turned many valuable leads over to the FBI that have helped keep us safe. We are acting like a community should. Reviewing the aberrations and moving to isolate them so the community survives.

The people "in the know"; those we rely upon for real protection are also awake. The governmental agencies and the intelligence community have been shaken from their complacency. They are finally "listening". They are acting on intelligence as they should. This has been verified for the public by the terrorist plots that have been stopped because of advance intelligence.

The United States has instituted many programs to keep us aware. As an example the terrorist threat level. This is constantly posted on the CNN crawl. Most of us do not even think about it. When the threat level is changed, suddenly everyone is aware. The programs in place in airports are another example.

Certainly these programs have taken their share of abuse. We have had many news programs

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