ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the skeptical view of public policy that relies on fear to motivate agreement on governmental priorities. It considers linguistic and paralinguistic evidence that the 108th Congress used fear generation to create perceived need for new antiterror legislation. In the information exchanges of a Senate committee hearing discussed here, my analysis shows the manifestation of a perspective that finds potential terror wherever it looks. The chapter argues that this perspective-call it the terror perspective-functions to establish the relevance of information for antiterror public policymaking. It also discusses applications by a Congressional committee chair and expert witnesses to interpret everyday operations of industry, business, and consumption as vulnerable to attack. The site also provided a link to massive quantities of basic data for reference and analysis. The analysis presented here is generally relevant to professional and technical communication. A hearing held in 2003 by the U.S.
