¶ … September 11 The impact of the attacks on the United States has been far reaching and has touched all Americans in some way. Life as we knew it prior to the attacks was changed forever on that morning in profound ways that mean losses for nearly everyone, with the exception of those standing to profit from "war." While the attack resulted in loss of life for some, others lost their jobs, incomes and homes. Travelers have lost the ease of travel that was once enjoyed in the United States. Many, it seems, have lost their rights to freedom of speech as established in the U.S. Constitution. In short, America lost its sense of innocence and its identity on that day.

While terrorist attacks are not entirely new in this country, in the past those directly affected by them were individuals, such as Robert Francis Kennedy was gunned down on June 5, 1968. He was the lone target on that day when Sirhan Bishara Sirhan lifted a .22-caliber Iver-Johnson Cadet revolver at 12:15 A.M., and shot his target, Kennedy, three times (Heymann 497). While the country grieved over another senseless political assassination, the impact on the nation as a whole was not as far-reaching as the aftermath of September 11, when the targets were chosen at random, and thousands died.

Among the hardest hit businesses in the...

Due to a new "fear of flying" in the U.S., both United and American Airlines were forced to layoff as many as 20,000 employees, each. For United, this was equal to one-fifth of their workforce. According to a statement in the Chicago Sun Times by Leo Mullin, the Delta Air Lines, Inc. CEO, "The airline industry now may lay off as many as 100,000 of the more than 1 million people employed in aviation" (Sun Times).
The impact of the layoffs then had a mushrooming effect that rippled through the nation. As the transportation companies reduced their personnel, all individuals attempting to use long-distance travel have experienced protracted inconvenience and delays, as well as what some feel to be burdensome and questionable new "security measures." In addition to the recoiling within the travel industries, cutbacks as well as new policies pertaining to heightened security have been implemented in nearly all areas of business, private enterprise or federal service.

Of increasing concern to some are what they perceive as government encroachment against individual rights and liberty, rights to freely declare public opinion regarding the "war," and rights to a free press, all of which are outlined in the U.S. Constitution. While many…