How US merchants of fear sparked a $130bn bonanza

[Jcrowley]

How US merchants of fear sparked a $130bn bonanza

The homeland security market has an army of lobbyists working for its interests in Washington

Paul Harris in New York
Sunday September 10, 2006
The Observer


Brian Lehman's farm lies down a gravel road, between two fields of swaying corn as tall as a man. It is in the middle of Indiana's rural heartland in a landscape populated mostly by bearded Amish farmers and their wives. Horse-drawn buggies are more common than cars, roads are littered with horse manure and fields are worked by hand. It feels distant in time and place from big cities such as New York or Washington, or even Indianapolis, two hours' drive south.

Yet Lehman's farm, from which he runs a small popcorn business, was recently declared a target for terrorists. State security officials included it in a list of assets considered potential victims of attack, most likely by Islamic fanatics. That was a surprise to Lehman, who had previously never considered Amish Country Popcorn on the front line in the war on terror. But he reckons he knows why he was chosen: 'It's the money.'

Five years after the World Trade Centre fell, a highly lucrative industry has been born in America - homeland security. There has been a goldrush as companies scoop up government contracts and peddle products that they say are designed to make America safe.

The figures are stunning. Seven years ago there were nine companies with federal homeland security contracts. By 2003 it was 3,512. Now there are 33,890. The money is huge. Since 2000, $130bn (£70bn) of contracts have been dished out. By 2015 annual federal spending on the industry could be $170bn.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1868912,00.html

[ananda]

1. Al-q op surveilled by NSA says:

Hey guys, let's target the Amish Popcorn industry
in northern Indiana. That'll really destroy America
and make em scared and that way they'll leave
Saudi Arabia, stop the war in Iraq, and leave us
Islamofascists to our own business opportunities
back in our own neighborhoods and poppy fields.

Yeahbuddy... let's do it.

[yurbud]

2. after 9/11, I noticed the farther out in sticks, the more paranoid.

I travelled that Christmas from LA to Portland, Oregon, to Spokane, Washington (a town barely big enough to support an airline stop) and the security was more stringent as the airports got smaller. National Gaurdsmen were patrolling the airport in Spokane.

They probably had tanks protecting a dirt airstrip in Montana.