The Oklahoma City Bombing and Policy
Agendas in the Media
Prologue
The tragic events that transpired in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania
on September 11,2001 have drawn much needed attention to the study of terrorism
and its impact on Western society; the creation and motive behind cultural
productions like newscasts; and the existence and persistence of governmental
responses to inciden ts of terrorism. This paper was written before these tragic
events transpired, but the topic of how the media is used by policy elites is timely.
Considering the rapidly developing restrictions on civil liberties, alterations in the
social norms that govern justice and define freedom, and the seemingly fundamental
alterations in American legal structures that are transpiring, such a study provides
insight into the mediated rationales for these changes.
The reader should note that many of the same issues from the era just before,
and for a year after, the Oklahoma City bombing are currently being discussed in
the media and by policy elites as solutions to the current crisis. These seemingly
forgotten debates, and contiguous Congressional actions, ended with the passage
of Public Law 104-132. The policy process left several issues unresolved and
specifically several suggested policy changes were left out of the final legislation
package because of political, constitutional, or other objections. Such left-over
policies include additional restrictions on fund raising, electronic surveillance and
wiretapping; policy that addresses the potential use of weapons of mass destruction;
and immigration restrictions designed to control certain ethnic groups. These are
previously debated and passed over policies; state agency representatives are once
again using some with far more restrictive versions as a solution for the current
crisis. These draconian policies may appear to have been quickly drafted in response
to September 11, but what is interesting is where these policies come from. They
represent a documentation of the how and the why of a process whereby when
state agencies did not get all of their requests granted after the debates on the
Oklahoma bombing were finalized in 1996, they were able to reinvent these very
same issues as responses to the current crisis facing America. After a crisis occurs,
like that posed by the recent attacks, these agencies quickly package these
preexisting policy demands as solutions. They use the media to gather public support
and increase the pressure on Congress to pass policies that may have been deemed
not in the best interest of a democracy just a few years prior to the current crisis.
The history of terrorism policy debates and media presentations of those debates