Fear on the Air - Two Prominent Experts Interviewed

For Immediate Release

NBC-TV played host to economy expert, and billionaire businessman Warren Buffet on Dateline NBC, while NBC’s KRON-TV’s ” Weekend News in San Francisco hosted terror expert and former FBI official Terry D. Turchie. Both experts from divergent corners of the American public landscape talked of fear in America and voiced concern for the economy but for different reasons.

AP reporter Timberly Ross reported that Warren Buffett likened the current economic situation to that of “ an economic Pearl Harbor” and said that Americans are “in a cycle of fear not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments and that leads to more fear.”

Counter-terrorism and national security expert Terry D. Turchie, spoke of fear as the objective of the terrorists. “The goal of the terrorist,” Turchie said, “is to cause fear and panic with the panic causing people to turn their backs on their legal, social, political and economic institutions.” 

On KRON-TV’s Weekend News , Turchie who was interviewed on what President-Elect Obama should do to keep America safe,  quickly pointed to repairing the economy as President-Elect Obama’s first priority. “He must address the issue of strengthening and rebuilding America’s economy which has suffered from missteps in the war on terror. The latter is vital and urgent since there is always the possibility of another terror attack which would leave us in a terrible place if it were to happen now. It must be remembered,” he added,” that the former Soviet Union collapsed as the weight of their costly mistakes in Afghanistan killed their empire.”

Moving from the economy to internal domestic matters, Turchie was asked what suggestions he would offer the new President regarding affairs in Washington. “The return of the transparency of government in all issues particularly the war on terror is another critical point the incoming President should act on,” Turchie said. “And another, is to make decisions in the terror war based upon the rule of law….we must return to the moral high ground.” Turchie pointed to two former Attorney Generals, who in testimony before Congress, did not seem to know that water boarding constituted torture. Such ignorance he said is “egregious.”

Turchie, a former FBI official, is particularly sensitive to the rule of law and transparency in government. It prompted him to write a new book Homeland Insecurity ,in which  he focused on the lessening of the transparency of law in Washington and has profiled, with co-author Dr. Kathleen Puckett, how a dozen Washington politicians, over the last several years from Watergate on,  have actually compromised national security and fostered the lessening of transparency in government in order to protect their own power platforms.

Terry D. Turchie has had a distinguished career in the FBI and was one of the very few people to be awarded the FBI Director’s Award for Both Counter-intelligence and Counter-terrorism. He was an Assistant Deputy Director of the FBI and the Unit Director who led the final pursuit and capture of Ted Kaczynski the infamous Unabomber. He is also the co-author of Hunting the American Terrorist, the account of Ted Kaczynski’s final pursuit and capture.

Homeland Insecurity 9781933909332 History Publishing Company LLC Sept. 2008, is available at Barnes and Noble Booksellers and other fine bookstores.

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Contact: Don Bracken

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