GOP convention: It’s a different America since 9/11

By Ellen Ratner

We are at the Republican convention in Cleveland, Ohio. Things have changed since my first set of conventions in San Diego and Chicago in 1996. Back then, terrorism was something that happened elsewhere and did not happen in the United States.

The big news event of 1996 that took place in Chicago was when President Bill Clinton’s adviser was outed by a tabloid for his relations with a prostitute. There was no ISIS, no plowing down people watching Bastille Day fireworks in France. Terrorism did not exist in the United States. The big concern was what was in the tabloids.

When we applied for convention credentials, we simply gave names and dates of birth. Unless someone was a felon or did something really bad and public, there was no problem in getting someone credentialed. Now the process takes weeks and must include place of birth, Social Security information and a photograph. These photos are actually printed on the identification to get into the conventions.

Life was different before 9/11. Although, you had to have an escort to get into the pressroom if you had an arrest record, any person holding a pass to the White House could walk a friend or family member to the waiting line and get them a tour of the White House. Now, you must obtain tickets from the White House visitor’s center or a member of Congress. In the past, people would walk though a metal detector. Now there are two clear painted “feet” to put your foot on in front of the visitor’s entrance where presumably people are checked for more than metal, perhaps (although they won’t say for security reasons) for radiation or radioactive substances.

Terrorism was not even a thought before 9/11. People did not think that way. We were in America, and things were safe, which is why 9/11 was such a shock to our collective systems.

Now, as we move around the GOP convention in Cleveland, Ohio, there are concrete barriers up everywhere. The Secret Service has engaged help from police forces with about 2,500 extra police from around the country. What used to be a security “sweep” was just a few hours and now the good part of a day.

Nixon’s Watergate revelations would have never been disclosed or made to happen if the journalists would have met their source in parking lot like what took place in Watergate. We all know that parking lots have cameras and the cameras are everywhere. Just last week at a friend’s apartment in Los Angeles a gunman got his way into the garage and held up a woman. His face and body were caught on tape and turned over to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Even in the suburbs of Cleveland, there are urging people to “see something, say something.” The court system in Cleveland is now going to be open 20 hours a day to deal with any arrests. This a major change from 20 years ago.

Had any of us thought about how life would change after 9/11 we would never have predicted any of this. Yes, technology has brought additional layers of surveillance into our lives, and that is responsible for our private lives and correspondence becoming public. Now, you can make a phone call from anywhere. Making a phone call from anywhere is great, except that phone towers can track were you are/were when the phone call is made. E-mails can be tracked and held by a server even if you choose to erase them. Those changes are due to technology, and would have happened without any terrorism.

However, when you add the fear that terrorism has put into our lives since 9/11, it would amaze anyone who was dropped into 2016 from an earlier time to our current world, how our lives have changed. The change is insidious. We don’t really ponder what happens in airport security. Although, there was security before 9/11, it was not anything like what we expect and get from the TSA now.

Terrorism is something that we now account for in our daily lives. We go on and hope that nothing will happen. For most of us, nothing will happen. How our lives have changed since 9/11 is something to take note of. It is a very different world than before the Twin Towers fell and before Flight 93 came down in Pennsylvania. Vigilance is now what we all expect and what we all do and it is now part of our daily lives. It has crept up on us, and we barely notice.

Media wishing to interview Ellen Ratner, please contact [email protected].

Ellen Ratner

Ellen Ratner is the bureau chief for the Talk Media News service. She is also Washington bureau chief and political editor for Talkers Magazine. In addition, Ratner is a news analyst at the Fox News Channel. Read more of Ellen Ratner's articles here.


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