Please	cite	as:	Stalcup,	Meg.	"What	If?	Re-imagined	Scenarios	and	the	Re-Virtualisation	of	History."	M/C	Journal 18.6	(Dec.	2015).	10	Dec.	2015	http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1029 What	if?	Re-imagined	Scenarios	and	the	Re-virtualisation	of	History Meg	Stalcup	|	M/C	Journal "Oklahoma	State	Highway	Re-imagined."	CC	BY-SA	4.0	2015	by	author,	using	Wikimedia	image by	Ks0stm	(CC	BY-SA	3	2013). Introduction This	article	is	divided	in	three	major	parts.	First	a	scenario,	second	its	context,	and	third, an	analysis.	The	text	draws	on	ethnographic	research	on	security	practices	in	the	United States	among	police	and	parts	of	the	intelligence	community	from	2006	through	to	the beginning of 2014. Real names are used when the material is drawn from archival sources, while individuals who were interviewed during fieldwork are referred to by their	position	rank	or	title.	For	matters	of	fact	not	otherwise	referenced,	see	the	sources compiled	on	"The	Complete	911	Timeline"	at	History	Commons. First,	a	scenario. I.	Oklahoma,	2001 It is 1 April 2001, in far western Oklahoma, warm beneath the late afternoon sun. Highway	Patrol Trooper	C.L. Parkins is about 80 kilometres from the	border	of Texas, watching trucks and cars speed along Interstate 40. The speed limit is around 110 kilometres	per	hour,	and	just	then,	his	radar	clocks	a	blue	Toyota	Corolla	going	135	kph. The	driver	is	not	wearing	a	seatbelt. Trooper Parkins swung in behind the vehicle, and after a	while signalled that the car should	pull	over.	The	driver	was	dark-haired	and	short; in	Parkins's	memory,	he	spoke English	without	any	problem.	He	asked	the	man	to	come	sit in	the	patrol	car	while	he did	a	series	of	routine	checks-to	see if	the	vehicle	was	stolen, if	there	were	warrants out	for	his	arrest,	if	his	license	was	valid.	Parkins	said,	"I	visited	with	him	a	little	bit	but	I just	barely	remember	even	having	him in	my	car.	You	stop	so	many	people	that if [...] you don't arrest them or anything [...] you don't remember too	much after a couple months"	(Clay	and	Ellis).	Nawaf	Al	Hazmi	had	a	valid	California	driver's	license,	with	an address in	San	Diego,	and	the	car's	registration	had	been	legally	transferred	to	him	by his former roommate. Parkins's inquiries to the National Crime Information Center returned no warnings, nor did anything seem odd in their interaction. So the officer wrote	Al	Hazmi	two	tickets	totalling	$138,	one	for	speeding	and	one	for	failure	to	use	a seat	belt,	and	told	him	to	be	on	his	way. Al	Hazmi,	for	his	part,	was	crossing	the	country	to	a	new	apartment	in	a	Virginia	suburb of	Washington,	DC,	and	upon	arrival	he	mailed	the	payment	for	his	tickets	to	the	county court	clerk	in	Oklahoma.	Over	the	next	five	months,	he	lived	several	places	on	the	East Coast:	going	to	the	gym,	making	routine	purchases,	and	taking	a	few	trips	that	included Las	Vegas	and	Florida.	He	had	a	couple	more	encounters	with	local	law	enforcement	and these	too	were	unremarkable.	On	1	May	2001	he	was	mugged,	and	promptly	notified the police, who documented the incident with his name and local address (Federal Bureau	of	Investigation,	139).	At	the	end	of	June,	having	moved	to	New	Jersey,	he	was involved	in	a	minor	traffic	accident	on	the	George	Washington	Bridge,	and	officers	again recorded	his	real	name	and	details	of	the	incident. In July, Khalid	Al	Mihdhar, the previous owner of the car, returned from	abroad, and joined	Al	Hazmi	in	New	Jersey.	The	two	were	boyhood	friends,	and	they	went	together to a library several times to look up travel information, and then, with Al Hazmi's younger	brother	Selem,	to	book	their	final	flight.	On	11	September,	the	three	boarded American	Airlines	flight	77	as	part	of	the	Al	Qaeda	team	that	flew	the	mid-sized	jet	into the west façade of the Pentagon. They died along with the piloting hijacker, all the passengers, and	125	people	on the ground. Theirs	was	one	of four airplanes	hijacked that	day, one	of	which	was crashed	by	passengers, the	others into significant sites	of American power, by men who had been living for varying lengths of time all but unnoticed	in	the	United	States. No	one	thought	that	Trooper	Parkins,	or	the	other	officers	with	whom	the	9/11	hijackers crossed paths, should have acted differently. The Commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety himself commented that the trooper "did the right thing" at	that	April	traffic	stop.	And	yet,	interviewed	by	a	local	newspaper	in	January	of 2002, Parkins mused to the reporter "it's difficult sometimes to think back and go: 'What	if	you	had	known	something	else?'"	(Clay	and	Ellis). II.	Missed	Opportunities "Hijackers Timeline (Redacted)." CC BY-SA 4.0 2015 by author, using the Federal Bureau of Investigation	(FBI)'s	"Working	Draft	Chronology	of	Events	for	Hijackers	and	Associates". In fact, several of the	men who would become the 9/11 hijackers were stopped for minor	traffic	violations.	Mohamed	Atta,	usually	pointed	to	as	the	ringleader,	was	given	a citation	in	Florida	that	spring	of	2001	for	driving	without	a	license.	When	he	missed	his court	date,	a	bench	warrant	was	issued	(Wall	Street	Journal).	Perhaps	the	warrant	was not	flagged	properly,	however,	since	nothing	happened	when	he	was	pulled	over	again, for	speeding. In	the	government inquiries	that	followed	attack,	and in	the	press,	these	brushes	with the law were "missed opportunities" to thwart the 9/11 plot (Kean and Hamilton, Report 353). Among a certain set of career law enforcement personnel, particularly those	active in	management	and	police	associations, these	missed	opportunities	were fraught with a sense of personal failure. Yet, in short order, they were to become a source	of	professional	revelation. The scenarios-Trooper Parkins and Al Hazmi, other encounters in other states, the general fact that there had been chance meetings between police officers and the hijackers-were	re-imagined	in	the	aftermath	of	9/11.	Those	moments	were	returned	to and reversed, so that	multiple potentialities could be seen, beyond or in addition to what	had	taken	place.	The	deputy	director	of	an	intelligence	fusion	centre	told	me	in	an interview, "it is always a local cop who saw something" and he replayed how the incidents of contact had unfolded with the men. These scenarios offered a way to recapture the past. In the uncertainty of every encounter, whether a traffic stop or questioning	someone	taking	photos	of	a landmark	(and	potential terrorist	target),	was also	potential. Through	a	process	of	re-imagining,	police	encounters	with	the	public	became	part	of	the government's "national intelligence" strategy. Previously a division had been	marked between	foreign	and	domestic	intelligence.	While	the	phrase	"national	intelligence"	had long	been	used,	notably in	National Intelligence	Estimates,	after	9/11 it	became	more significant.	The	overall	director	of the	US intelligence	community	became	the	Director National Intelligence, for instance, and the cohesive term marked the way that increasingly diverse institutional components, types	of data and forms	of action	were evolving	to	address	the	collection	of	data	and	intelligence	production	(McConnell). In a series of working groups mobilised by members of major police professional organisations, and funded by the US Department of Justice, career officers and representatives from federal agencies produced detailed recommendations and plans for involving police in the new Information Sharing Environment. Among the plans drawn up during this period	was what would eventually come to be the Nationwide Suspicious	Activity	Reporting Initiative,	built	principally around the idea	of	encounters such	as	the	one	between	Parkins	and	Al	Hazmi. Map 1: Map of pilot sites in the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Evaluation Environment	in	2010	(courtesy	of	the	author;	no	longer	available	online). In	an	interview,	a	fusion	centre	director	who	participated	in	this	planning	as	well	as	its implementation,	told	me	that	his	thought	had	been,	"if	we	train	state	and	local	cops	to understand pre-terrorism indicators, if we train them to be more curious, and to question	more	what	they	see,"	this	could	feed	into	"a	system	where	they	could	actually get	that	information	to	somebody	where	it	matters." Map	2:	Map	of	participating	sites	in	the	Nationwide	Suspicious	Activity	Reporting	Initiative,	as	of 2014. In	devising	the	reporting	initiative,	the	working	groups	counter-actualised	the	scenarios of those encounters, and the kinds of larger plots to	which they	were understood to belong, in order to extract a set of concepts: categories of suspicious "activities" or "patterns	of	behaviour"	corresponding	to	the	phases	of	a	terrorism	event	in	the	process of becoming (Deleuze, Negotiations). This conceptualisation of terrorism was standardised,	so	that	it	could	be	taught,	and	applied,	in	discerning	and	documenting	the incidents	comprising	an	event's	phases. In police officer training, the various suspicious behaviours were called "terrorism precursor	activities"	and	were	divided	between	criminal	and	non-criminal. "Functional Standards," developed by the Los Angeles Police Department and then tested by the Department	of	Homeland	Security (DHS), served to code the	observed	behaviours for sharing (via compatible communication protocols) up the federal hierarchy and also horizontally	between	states	and	regions.	In	the	popular	parlance	of	videos	made	for	the public	by	local	police	departments	and	DHS,	which	would	come	to	populate	the	internet within a few years, these categories were "signs of terrorism," more specifically: surveillance,	eliciting	information,	testing	security,	and	so	on. "The	Seven	Signs	of	Terrorism	(sometimes	eight)."	CC	BY-SA	4.0	2015	by	author,	using	materials in	the	public	domain. If the	problem	of	9/11	had	been	that	the	men	who	would	become	hijackers	had	gone unnoticed,	the	basic idea	of	the	Suspicious	Activity	Reporting	Initiative	was	to	create	a mechanism through which the eyes and ears of everyone could contribute to their detection. In this vein, "If You	See	Something, Say SomethingTM"	was	a campaign that originated	with	the	New	York	City	Metropolitan	Transportation	Authority,	and	was	then licensed	for	use	to	DHS.	The	tips	and	leads	such	campaigns	generated,	together	with	the reports	from	officers	on	suspicious	incidents	that	might	have	to	do	with	terrorism,	were coordinated in the Information Sharing Environment. Drawing on reports thus generated,	the	Federal	Government	would,	in	theory,	communicate	timely	information on	security	threats	to	law	enforcement	so	that	they	would	be	better	able	to	discern	the incidents to be reported. The cycle aimed to catch events in emergence, in a distinctively	anticipatory	strategy	of	counterterrorism	(Stalcup). III.	Re-imagination A curious fact emerges from this history, and it is key to understanding how this initiative	developed.	That is, there	was	nothing	suspicious in the	encounters.	The soon-to-be terrorists' licenses were up-to-date, the cars were legal, they were not nervous. Even	Mohamed Atta's	warrant	would have resulted in nothing	more than a fine.	It	is	not	self-evident,	given	these	facts,	how	a	governmental	technology	came	to	be designed	from	these	scenarios.	How––if	nothing	seemed	of	immediate	concern,	if	there had been nothing suspicious to discern––did an intelligence strategy come to be assembled	around	such	encounters? Evidently,	strident	demands	were	made	after	the	events	of	9/11	to	know,	"what	went wrong?"	Policies	were	crafted	and	implemented	according	to	the	answers	given:	it	was too	easy	to	obtain	identification,	or	to	enter	and	stay	in	the	country,	or	to	buy	airplane tickets and fly. But the trooper's question, the reader will recall, was somewhat different.	He	had	said,	"It's	difficult	sometimes	to	think	back	and	go: 'What if	you	had known	something	else?'"	To	ask	"what	if	you	had	known	something	else?"	is	also	to	ask what	else	might	have	been. Janet	Roitman	shows	that	identifying	a	crisis	tends	to	implicate	precisely	the	question	of what	went	wrong.	Crisis,	and	its	critique,	take	up	history	as	a	series	of	right	and	wrong turns, bad choices	made between existing dichotomies (90): liberty-security, securityprivacy,	ordinary-suspicious. It is	to	say,	what	were	the	possibilities	and	how	could	we have selected the correct one? Such questions seek to retrospectively uncover latencies-systemic	or structural, human	error or a	moral lapse (71)-but they ask	of those	latencies	what	false	understanding	of	the	enemy,	of	threat,	of	priorities,	allowed	a terrible	thing	to	happen. "What if...?" instead turns to the virtuality hidden in history, through which missed opportunities	can	be	re-imagined. "The	Cholmondeley	Sisters	and	Their	Swaddled	Babies."	Anonymous,	c.	1600-1610	(British	School, 17th	century)	CC	BY-SA	4.0	2015	by	author,	using	materials	in	the	public	domain. Gilles	Deleuze,	speaking	with	Claire	Parnet,	says,	"memory	is	not	an	actual	image	which forms	after	the	object	has	been	perceived,	but	a	virtual	image	coexisting	with	the	actual perception	of	the	object"	(150).	Re-imagined	scenarios	take	up	the	potential	of	memory, so that as the trooper's traffic stop	was revisited, it also became a	way of imagining what else might have been. As Immanuel Kant, among others, points out, "the productive power of imagination is [...] not exactly creative, for it is not capable of producing	a	sense	representation	that	was	never	given	to	our	faculty	of	sense;	one	can always furnish evidence of the material of its ideas" (61). The "memory" of these encounters provided the material for re-imagining them, and thereby re-virtualising history. This	was	different	than	other	governmental	responses,	such	as	examining	past	events	in order to assess the probable risk of their repetition, or drawing on past events to imagine future scenarios, for use in exercises that identify vulnerabilities and remedy deficiencies (Anderson). Re-imagining scenarios of police-hijacker encounters through the question of "what if?" evoked what Erin Manning calls "a certain array of recognizable elastic points" (39), through which options for other movements were invented.	The	Suspicious	Activity	Reporting	Initiative's	architects instrumentalised	such moments as they designed new governmental entities and programs to anticipate terrorism. For	each	element	of	the	encounter,	an	aspect	of	the	initiative	was	developed:	training, functional	standards,	a	way	to	(hypothetically)	get	real-time	information	about	threats. Suspicion	was identified	as	a	key	affect,	one	which, if cultivated, could	offer	a	way to effectively	deal	not	with	binary	right	or	wrong	possibilities,	but	with	the	potential	which lies nestled in uncertainty. The "signs of terrorism" (that is, categories of "terrorism precursor activities") served to maximise receptivity to encounters. Indeed, it can apparently	create	an	oversensitivity,	manifested, for	example, in	police	surveillance	of innocent people exercising their right to assemble (Madigan), or the confiscation of photographers's	equipment	(Simon). "What	went	wrong?"	and	"what	if?"	were	different	interrogations	of	the	same	pre-9/11 incidents. The questions are of course intimately related.	Moments	where something went	wrong	are	when	one	is	likely	to	ask,	what	else	might	have	been	known?	Moreover, what else	might have been? The answers to each question informed and shaped the other,	as	re-imagined	scenarios	became	the	means	of	extracting	categories	of	suspicious activities	and	patterns	of	behaviour	that	comprise	the	phases	of	an	event	in	becoming. Conclusion The	9/11	Commission,	after	two	years	of	investigation	into	the	causes	of	the	disastrous day, reported that "the most important failure was one of imagination" (Kean and Hamilton, Summary). The iconic images of 9/11––such as airplanes being flown into symbols	of	American	power––already	existed, in	guises	ranging	from	fictive	thrillers	to the	infamous	FBI	field	memo	sent	to	headquarters	on	Arab	men	learning	to	fly,	but	not land.	In	1974	there	had	already	been	an	actual	(failed)	attempt	to	steal	a	plane	and	kill the	president	by	crashing	it	into	the	White	House	(Kean	and	Hamilton,	Report	Ch11	n21). The	threats	had	been	imagined,	as	Pat	O'Malley	and	Philip	Bougen	put	it,	but	not	how	to govern them,	and	because the	ways to	address those threats	had	been	not imagined, they	were	discounted	as	matters	for	intervention	(29). O'Malley	and	Bougen	argue	that	one	effect	of	9/11,	and	the	general	rise	of	incalculable insecurities, was to make it necessary for the "merely imaginable" to become governable. Images	of threats from the	mundane to the	extreme	had to	be conjured, and then imagination applied again, to devise ways to render them amenable to calculation, minimisation or elimination. In the words of the 9/11 Commission, the Government	must	bureaucratise	imagination. There is a sense in which this led to more of the same. Re-imagining the early encounters	reinforced	expectations	for	officers	to	do	what	they	already	do,	that	is,	to	be on the lookout for suspicious behaviours. Yet, the images of threat brought forth, in their	mixing	of	memory	and	an	elastic	"almost,"	generated	their	own	momentum	and distinctive demands. Existing capacities, such as suspicion, were re-shaped and elaborated into specific forms	of security governance. The	question	of "what if?" and the	scenarios	of	police-hijacker	encounter	were	particularly	potent	equipment for this re-imagining	of	history	and	its	re-virtualisation. References Anderson,	Ben.	"Preemption,	Precaution,	Preparedness:	Anticipatory	Action	and	Future Geographies."	Progress	in	Human	Geography	34.6	(2010):	777-98. Clay, Nolan, and Randy Ellis. "Terrorist Ticketed Last Year on I-40."	NewsOK, 20 Jan. 2002.	25	Nov.	2014	‹http://newsok.com/article/2779124›. Deleuze,	Gilles.	Negotiations.	New	York:	Columbia	UP,	1995. Deleuze,	Gilles,	and	Claire	Parnet.	Dialogues	II.	New	York:	Columbia	UP	2007	[1977]. Federal	Bureau	of	Investigation.	"Hijackers	Timeline	(Redacted)	Part	01	of	02."	Working Draft Chronology of Events for Hijackers and Associates. 2003. 18 Apr. 2014 ‹https://vault.fbi.gov/9-11%20Commission%20Report/9-11-chronology-part-01-of-02›. Kant,	Immanuel.	Anthropology	from	a	Pragmatic	Point	of	View.	Trans.	Robert	B.	Louden. Cambridge:	Cambridge	UP,	2006. Kean,	Thomas	H.,	and	Lee	Hamilton.	Executive	Summary	of	the	9/11	Commission	Report: Final	Report	of	the	National	Commission	on	Terrorist	Attacks	upon	the	United	States.	25 Oct.	2015	‹http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Exec.htm›. Kean,	Thomas	H.,	and	Lee	Hamilton.	The	9/11	Commission	Report: Final	Report	of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. New York: W.W. Norton,	2004. McConnell,	Mike.	"Overhauling	Intelligence."	Foreign	Affairs,	July/Aug.	2007. Madigan, Nick. "Spying Uncovered." 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