Steve Chapman on the FBI’s Exploitation of Fear

James Comey became FBI director
last year, at a time when Osama bin Laden was dead, terrorism at
home was on the decline and the United States was shrinking its
inflammatory presence in the Muslim world. So naturally, he says
the danger is way worse than you think.

Referring to al-Qaida groups in Africa and the Middle East, he
recently told The New York Times, “I didn’t have anywhere
near the appreciation I got after I came into this job just how
virulent those affiliates had become. There are both many more than
I appreciated, and they are stronger than I appreciated.”

That’s the logic of people in government, writes Steve Chapman.
What begins as a legitimate concern becomes an irrational
obsession. What begins as a temporary problem becomes a
never-ending emergency.

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