I think there's a conspiracy going on and the terrrorist 'threat' is just a useful tool to help this- they actually want people to feel so guilty about anything fun (travelling, drinking, smoking, sex, eating tasty food, drugs,using too much electric to power all our computers, TV's, etc) that everyone stops having fun, that way we're all so fucking depressed about how shit life is that we don't give a crap what the government gets up to.