"I'm disappointed that we've not progressed more than we have," she said of building a sense of cohesiveness in society. In fact, Kohl-Welles added, a national sense of unity has dissipated to a large extent.
That's in contrast, she said, to the attitude reflected by the thousands of people who showed up with around a million flowers for a spontaneous memorial at the International Fountain in the Seattle Center. "When I think of Sept. 11, I think of that as much as the airplanes going into buildings."
The memorial ceremony was only supposed to last a few hours, but it went on for days, and unfiltered emotions were reflected in the actions of those who gathered in the neighborhood, Kohl-Welles said
"Maybe even more importantly, the people connected," she said. "That held so much promise to me for becoming a unifying force."
Neighborhood effects
That sense of unity hasn't completely disappeared. The terrorist attacks, for example, prompted a personal, not political, reaction from Doreen Deaver, assistant coordinator of the Magnolia Community Center.
"I think it affected me in the numbers of people that were killed," she said.
Although the shock of the attack has worn off to some degree, it's still there for Deaver.
"My thoughts drift back and forth to it," she said. Deaver also said initial reactions were different for youths who go the community center, but judging from conversations she hears, the reactions seem to have faded in a year's time. "I think the kids are moving on," Deaver said.
While a sense of national unity may have lessened in the past 12 months, its effects are still evident at a neighborhood level, according to Ellen Monrad, chair of the Queen Anne Community Council.
"On Queen Anne, I think that people seem friendlier to me, more willing to smile and say hello as they walk down the street," she said. "On the community council level, we're more cordial," Monrad said of an organization that has had its share of family squabbles.
She believes attitudes have changed because Sept. 11 forced people to develop a new sense of perspective.
"Problems that seemed insurmountable don't seem as important now," Monrad said.
That change in attitude can also be felt at the airport, the only place most people will notice that the country is on a war footing.
"I flew recently, and I didn't feel like I was stressed," she said.
Security measures were obvious, but not in-your-face or overwhelming, said Monrad, who added that she and her son were both searched in a Michigan airport.
"But I also felt that people were a little more mellow, more willing to accept a slow pace," she said.
As for the war on terrorism, Monrad takes a cautious approach to Homeland Security measures, but she supports Pres. Bush's foreign policy. "I think the government is handling it well."
Questions of
civil liberties
Monrad may be uneasy about Homeland Security, but Eric Ward described the program and the war on terrorism itself as "frightening."
A Queen Anne resident and executive director of the Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity, which tracks hate crimes, Ward said there are three especially troubling aspects of the steps taken against the terrorist threat.
"One is our willingness to sacrifice our democracy for perceived safety," he said. "I didn't think we were so gullible, frankly."
Ward also said America is becoming a nation of xenophobes, where it's OK to distrust and even arrest foreigners simply because they're foreign.
"The willingness to incarcerate people without due process is very telling," he added. "The third is having a president no one elected export war perpetually anywhere he wants."
Ward said he believes the principles of enlightenment - the idea that the universalism of man is true and that rational thinking is a valid world view - are under attack. The war on terrorism has become irrational, according to Ward, who said he no longer goes to the public library because the Justice Department has subpoenaed records of people's reading lists from some libraries.
Checking out
the library
He probably doesn't need to worry about public libraries in Seattle, according to Debi Westwood, the new manager at the Magnolia branch.
She said she wasn't aware of any subpoenas being served at Seattle libraries, but Westwood conceded she can't be absolutely sure. Under provisions in the Patriot Act, librarians can't let it be known publicly that a subpoena for a reader's records has been served, she said.
Still, such security measures go against the grain at the library.
"In Seattle, our policy is nobody but you and I get to know what you're reading," Westwood said.
In any case, libraries wouldn't necessarily be a gold mine of information for the feds. Westwood said library computer records will reveal how many books a patron checks out in a year, but not which books. There are some exceptions, though.
Records of books that are currently checked out, overdue or damaged are kept in the system. And patrons can voluntarily have the library keep a computerized list of the books for which they have signed up on waiting lists, she said. The library also keeps lists of disruptive patrons, and those records could be subpoenaed, as well, Westwood said.
"It concerns me a lot," she said of the possibility library records of any sort could be subpoenaed. "We've always taken borrower confidentiality very seriously."
That is necessary to maintain what Westwood called "the democracy of information." Just because someone checks out a book on the Taliban doesn't make them one, she noted.
That's relevant because every book the Magnolia Library had on Afghanistan, different branches of Islam and the Taliban was checked out in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, Westwood said. "People wanted to know more, like who are these people."
A balancing act
Kohl-Welles believes public safety is a critical issue for the country, but she worries that civil liberties are being eroded under provisions of the Patriot Act. On a state level, some lawmakers wanted to go even further, expanding the scope of wiretaps, for example, Kohl-Welles said.
"In our state legislature, we were able to fight off the more radical attempts," she said of several proposed bills. "I voted against the bills every time they came up."
Even without expanded statewide security measures, the national war on terrorism has had an effect on local law enforcement, according to Queen Anne resident and Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske.
"We already have strained resources," he said, adding that the war on terrorism has caused the police department to reprioritize its approach to law enforcement.
There is a new assistant police chief in charge of emergency preparedness, and Seattle Police Department detectives have been assigned to the federal terrorism task force headed up by the FBI, Kerlikowske said of two examples.
"We worked jointly with the FBI on bank robberies, but that's changed," he said of another example. FBI agents formerly working on bank robberies have been reassigned to the war on terror, leaving the Seattle Police Department to take up the slack. "So we still have these basic day-to-day responsibilities."
Kerlikowske said that, after New York City and Washington, D.C., Seattle has been mentioned most frequently as a potential target for terrorists.
One reason for that, he said, was the discovery of a laptop computer in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, that contained old photos of the Space Needle and the Kingdome. Still, there are "no specific and credible threats to Seattle," Kerlikowske said.
The number of calls about potential terrorist activity in the Seattle area has declined, but the Seattle Police Department takes the reports very seriously, he said. "I think we've all been erring on the side of caution," Kerlikowske added.
In an ironic but positive response to Sept. 11, the police department has forged new relationships with the Arab-American community and Muslims in Seattle, he said. The change was prompted by attacks on Muslims and a North Seattle mosque, Kerlikowske said.
"We're there to protect them," he stressed. "We're there to protect their civil rights."
A defining moment
The Sept. 11 attacks were a defining moment in American history, according to Monica Wooton, a member and past president of the Magnolia Historical Society.
"I think it continues to be a defining moment in history," she said.
Wooton also said the Historical Society is assembling an archival record of the effects Sept. 11 had on Magnolia. The folder containing the archival records is already 2 1/2 inches thick, and it includes - among other items - images, e-mails, stamps, stickers, posters and short blurbs in the media, she said.
"This collection is for researchers to go back to and put the pieces together after a reasonable amount of time has passed," Wooton said.
The one-year anniversary is an important benchmark, she added, because the country's first response and the rhetoric on a political level "sets the scene for worldwide implications."
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