This is what happens when the leader of a country also controls the largest media conglomerate of that country. Control the media, and you control the people. Control the people, and you *keep* control of the media.
But to accomplish that requires a proper and controlled release of information pertaining to true corruption. The Wikileaks-style widescale release of everything an open government is keeping secret doesn't do that.
Except... that didn't happen. You do realize they haven't released everything yet, right? Plenty of documents are being redacted.
100 billion dollars of the cost had nothing to do with the response. That's a pretty devastating cost - more than ~1600 dollars per domestic passenger in 2001. Even if we spread that cost over 10 years, we are talking about 150 dollars added to every single plane ticket sold in the USA.
The fact is, 9/11 didn't devastate the airline industry because the Government stepped in and protected the airlines from lawsuits they surely would have lost. It seems reasonable for the US Government to do what it can to prevent further tail-end terrorist attacks. Sometimes, their actions are unreasonable, though.
"The risk of a terrorist attack is so infinitesimal and its impact so relatively insignificant"
9/11 was one of those tail-end events that proved this wrong. I totally agree with them that security has gone too far, but it's stupid to claim a risk and its associated costs are insignificant just ten years after we learned that they really aren't.
Some perspective: 9/11 cost at least 100 billion dollars in actual, immediate costs - this is over 10x the entire global airline industries' expected income this year. 100 billion dollars pales in comparison to the final price tag, which included massive loss of life, a fall in global markets, and the USA's misguided overreaction to the whole thing.
We are still paying the price, with higher security when we fly.
"And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." -- Spaceballs
