DANIEL SCHORR: The politics of terror is something new to our country.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, Host: NPR's senior news analyst, Daniel Schorr.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: Those are the words of Senator Larry Craig of Idaho. It has to do with how the memory of 9/11 and the fear of a future 9/11 have put their imprint on the process of governing in the most powerful nation on earth.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: Its hard to remember the time when one could just walk on board an airplane. And this week, Congress was using much of its scarce legislative time to deal with questions reflecting national nervousness.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: Congress voted to renew the four-year-old Patriot Act, with changes making it easier for federal agents to tap telephones in secrecy and obtain library and bank records without disclosing they had done so. The Administration beat off a democratic effort to get a Congressional investigation of NSA eavesdropping, agreeing only to a seven-member panel to conduct oversight, but still permitting wiretaps without a warrant for up to 45 days.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: And then there is the great seaport controversy, which has generated more public wrath than any act of government in a long time. Republican leaders are up in arms against the Commander in Chief, demanding that he cancel an agreement with a company owned by Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates. Some Republicans are attaching cancellation of the contract to that must-pass spending bill for Iraq and New Orleans.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: Lawmakers are acting as though their reelection depends on canceling the arrangement with the United Arab Emirates, and maybe it does. Republican Don Manzullo of Illinois says he hasn't seen this depth of reaction from his district in more than a decade. Osama bin Laden must be rejoicing on how he has scared the great superpower.</s>DANIEL SCHORR: This is Daniel Schorr.
Daniel Schorr, senior news analyst for NPR, says that the memory of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, continues to affect politics in the United States. Evidence of this includes the bitter controversy over the management of U.S. seaports, and the recent Congressional vote to renew the Patriot Act.