NOTE: THIS IS A REPLAY OF A PREVIOUSLY BROADCAST EPISODE. WE WILL NOT BE TAKING ANY CALLS DURING THE PROGRAM.
In a previous post I mentioned the Maunder Minimum, which was basically a period of time back in the 1600's where sunspots decided not to follow their usual 11 year cycle. However, as all ham radio operators know, sunspots almost always do follow that cycle, with really good radio propagation occurring on higher frequencies when the sunspots peak.
Over the years, people have tried to correlate sunspots to everything from longevity to human aggression. There is no denying that things go in cycles - look at how I can show that the United States reacts to fear of external attack in 11 year cycles of overshooting first towards increased surveillance of citizens, then overshooting right back to making it too easy for terrorists to live among us:
1935 - Congressman Martin Dies begins to believe Communists are burrowing into US institutions. J. Edgar Hoover later testifies "The American communists launched a furtive attack on Hollywood in 1935 by the issuance of a directive calling for a concentration in Hollywood. The orders called for action on two fronts: One, an effort to infiltrate the labor unions; two, infiltrate the so-called intellectual and creative fields." Three years later, the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) is formed in the US, to investigate Communist infiltration of US government agencies, labor unions and the media industry.
1946 - Senator Joseph McCarthy begins using HUAC to further his own political agenda, building on suspicion about Russia's intentions in post WW II Europe. This leads to all kinds of increases in government surveillance powers by both domestic law enforcement and national intelligence agencies.
1957 - McCarthy dies, but just a few years later the revitalized HUAC holds hearings in California to look into suspicious student activities on college campuses, as fears of the hippie/beatnik generation begin to heat up.
1968 - Richard Nixon is elected to the White House and quickly begins to take political advantage of all the domestic surveillance capabilities that have been built up over the past 22 years. In 1971 the White House "Plumbers" unit breaks into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist office to discredit Ellsberg as the "Pentagon Papers" are published. In June 1972 the Watergate burglars are caught.
1979 - In reaction to many of the abuses of the Nixon administration, the privacy act of 1974 leads to increasingly strict limitations on government agencies abilities to monitor US citizens. The National Security Agency is barred from any domestic surveillance, and the FBI and other domestic agencies are placed under judicial controls to obtain wiretaps.
1990- The US State Department develops its report on "Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1990" stating that "The continuing decline in the number of international terrorist incidents during 1990 is encouraging. From a peak of 856 in 1988, the number of incidents decreased to 455 in 1990. Even more encouraging is the increasing counter-terrorist cooperation among governments and our numerous successes in bringing the rule of law to bear on terrorists." Three years later the number was back up to 427 terrorist events, including the bombing of the World Trade Center by domestic based terrorists. John Perry Barlow of Grateful Dead fame and Mitch Kapor, of Lotus 123 fame, form the Electronic Freedom Foundation, which later fights to make strong encryption available for all, and to keep surveillance (by governments at least - the privacy lobbies are fine with companies invading people's privacy) off of the Internet.
2001 - Terrorists working from inside the United States attack the World Trade Center in NYC and the Pentagon in Washington DC. Six weeks later, Attorney General Ashcroft and the US Congress pass the PATRIOT act (Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) - go back to 1938.
Of course, the 11 year part is nonsense, but where we are today is definitely part of a well known cycle. By 2012, we should be at the point where we have repealed most of the Patriot Act, law enforcement is back to worrying about catching criminals vs. preventing terrorism, the US intelligence agencies will be using global economic espionage through outsourcing as the new bogeyman to justify budgets - just in time for the next big domestic terrorism act!
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