Issued Wednesday by the International Affairs & Defence Section of the House of Commons Library for the use of members of the British Parliament, this 123-page library research paper covers a range of issues related to the September 11 attacks in the United States and their potential aftermath. Among other topics, the paper covers reactions to the attacks (UK, US, and beyond), information on Osama...

This new site from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) contains essays by well-known social scientists on the events of and following September 11. The site aims to "provide the public and academic community with a deeper level of analysis than can be found on Op-Ed pages or talk shows." Among the more than 35 pieces currently posted are essays by Seyla Benhabib, Olivier Roy, and John Hall....

This feature from the nonprofit Edge Foundation, Inc. (reviewed previously in the July 25, 2000 Scout Report for Social Sciences & Humanities) is an impressive collection of thoughtful words in response to the recent terrorist attacks and ensuing war. The Edge postulated the question, "What now?" to its members with the idea that, as editor John Brockman explains, "within the community is...

The University of Chicago Press offers, at this site, a series of essays, "Reflections by our authors in the aftermath." Among the seven essays are "Metaphors of Terror" by George Lakoff, "Islam Has Been Hijacked, And Only Muslims Can Save It" by Jonathan Rauch, and "An Arab American Internment?" by Eric L. Muller. The perspectives here are varied, and the essays are thoughtful meditations, some...

Some of our readers may already have noticed that Google (last mentioned in the July 20, 2001 Scout Report) is sporting a new look these days. Running along the top of the search page are now four tabs: Web, Images, Groups (newsgroups), and Directory (Open Directory's human-selected listings) that enable users to see different sets of search results. We reported on the Beta version of Google's...

Many of the nation's lawmakers are concerned this week with how to square national security measures with civil liberties. Attorney General John Ashcroft has asked Congress to quickly pass legislation granting broad powers to the administration, including the ability to indefinitely detain those considered a threat to security, greater discretion in surveillance, and more power to seize people's...

Created by congressional legislation and President George W. Bush near the end of 2002, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States is an independent bipartisan commission that was chartered to prepare a "full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks." This authoritative site provides biographical information about the...

The National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book series has intrigued and informed policymakers, students, and the general public for the past few years. This latest release should be no different as it provides FAA documents that deal with the attacks on the United States that occurred on the morning of September 11, 2001. These particular documents were referenced extensively in the first...

This article from the New York Times shows several concepts for possible monuments/ buildings at Ground Zero. The interactive feature, titled Envisioning Downtown, has some very impressive content. It has excellent footage of artist impressions and computer animations of the proposed architectures, all of which are quite remarkable. Seven designs are highlighted, with descriptions of the various...

Why the Towers Fell is a special episode of NOVA scheduled for broadcast on PBS on April 30, 2002. This online material complements the television program by assessing the exact cause of the disaster from an engineer's standpoint. One section of the Web site is an interview with a materials engineering professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the dialog, he describes the most...