..could have prevented 9/11?
In 1996, President Clinton signed Airport Security measures into law (
http://www.cnn.com/US/9610/09/faa/) based upon wide-ranging security measures recommended by Vice President Al Gore's aviation security commission (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17818-2001Dec9?language=printer). Interestingly, key senators on the Senate Aviation Subcommittee shot down mandated changes recommended by Gore and the White House and instead urged "further study." (Eight of the nine Republicans on the subcommittee had received contributions from the major airlines.)
"Among those attacking the Gore Commission recommendations, incidentally, was the New Republic, which noted that "two billion dollars a year to guard against terrorism and sabotage" would amount to "a cost per life saved of well over $300 million." The cost of such libertarian dogma must now be measured in thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars." (salon.com)