WHAT 9/11 AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS TEACH US ABOUT COVID-19
FTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, huge swaths of the federal government reorganized around the idea of fighting terrorism. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) became a maximally intrusive and minimally effective part of every traveler’s life. The FBI, which had failed to connect the dots on the 9/11 plot, received billions more in funding. The Department of Homeland Security, a shiny new Cabinetlevel bureaucracy with an Orwellian name, grew at a rate that would make Clifford the Big Red Dog turn green with envy. The PATRIOT Act whisked away Americans’ privacy, and the Authorization for
