For the week of  October 24 - 30, 2001

Hoaxes feed fears, too

Commentary by Pat Murphy

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If anything fuels fear and uncertainty of Americans these days it’s the nature of information flowing from every direction.

From Washington, contradictions: one source claims anthrax sent through the mail is "weapons grade," another source says not so. President Bush says we must go about our lives; the House of Representatives shuts down from fear of anthrax.

And then there are the e-mails flooding the Internet—the story, for example, of the World Trade Center survivor who "rode" the collapsing structure to the ground, and the photo of the man posing on deck of the WTC just before an American jetliner in the background hit the building.

Both were hoaxes.

Some mainstream media make an effort to debunk these crank claims. But most hoaxes go unchallenged, which only fosters the impression they’re true.

I make it a habit of checking two Internet sources when I open my e-mail and want to check dubious information — Urban Legends References Pages (www.snopes2.com) and F-Secure (www.f-secure.com/virus-info/hoax/) — both of which are quick to identify hoaxes as well as provide fresh listings of Internet viruses.

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"Early on, we were all, and appropriately so, in the emotion of the moment. Since that time, there is a greater sense of caution. The reality is that the checkbook is not an endless open checkbook."— Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

Good intentions notwithstanding, Sen. Craig’s effort at parsimony is unworkable and impractical on one hand, contradictory on another.

For starters, demands placed on the federal budget by fluctuating needs of this new type of warfare make it almost impossible to place a limit on just how much will be spent. Sen. Craig’s political proclivity for drawing a line on spending will prove to be obsolete as new weapons in dealing with international terrorists require billions of dollars — vaccination supplies for 300 million Americans, new security personnel and systems for strategic targets (dams and reservoirs, airports, nuclear plants, stadiums and the like) and one can only guess what else as the war that is forecast to last for years picks up momentum.

If he’s concerned about the stability of the federal budget, then Sen. Craig should insist that his fellow senators move quickly to repeal the remaining years of the $1.6 trillion tax relief legislation that was approved earlier this year.

With deficit spending already wiping out the surplus, and federal tax revenues taking a shellacking because of slumping business operations and higher joblessness, how can Washington afford to continue refunding billions of dollars that it doesn’t even have?

If events of Sept. 11 changed the way Americans live, then it surely must’ve changed the politics of members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House and the way they think.

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.