I don't like it.
They use slick advertising manipulation to push a one-sided message without any concern evident for civil rights and freedom from government excess.
The fact there's some budget out to develop this sort of message is a concern to start with.
'This is how it starts', to use a cliche - this ad wouldn't have been out of place in communist East Germany.
It's propagandistic in several ways. It plays on emotions - caring about yoru family's safety, for example, as it tries to imply that anyone of all demographics is for this.
It bends over backwards to force the 'average person' is for this message, down to their saying their names at the end - you can relate to them, aren't they so honest.
They don't look scary at all. Pay no attention to the man behind the ad.
Encouraging people to fixate on thefear of terrorism and idea that this monitoring can save so many lives is highly maniultive and it increases paranoia while decreasing the care ofr freedoms and privacy. It's the ad that walks up to Benjamin Franklin talking about giving up liberties for safety and kicks him the nuts. Twice.
This is what you get whan you get some agency with a mission to 'protect the public' too mcuh, you get people whose agenda is too one-sided in the balance of safety and freedom, using the tools around them - like advertising manipulation - to run rampant over other issues.
'Let the experts decide what's a threat', it says. Encouraging this sort of welcoming of 'big brother' as 'the protector', just as totalitarian states tell the citizens to identify with the government, encouraging them to think of protecting the government and their society as the same thing, and fearful of anyone who is rebellious. It's really a message that is a step towards selling the people to want totalitarianism. The stronger the government is, the safer they are sort of thing.
It sends that message the citizens and the government have the same interest against the 'terrorists' - by using only 'average people'. There's no government agency or spokesman visible in the ad that might remind you not to completely forget that 'the price of liberty is vigilance' against the government. No, just you safe citizens and the govrnment on one side together, against the enemy, the subversives.
It's not an ad that reflects a population of citizens who are independant of the government, making their own free choices that might well be against the government.
It's really reminiscent of the 'red scare' days when the public was constanlty tole to be terrified of 'communists in their midst' - infiltrating the government, maybe it's their neighbor - be afraid and report any suspicious activities to the government to investigate, and boy they sure did a reasonable job of that, with the blacklisting being accepted, a terrified mentality in the US that was to supportive of war to 'protect us'. It's partly why a Vietnam could happen, with the 'domino theory' so widely beleived.
The ad seems dishonestly and manipulative to me. If the government wants you reporting, let them speak as the government.
The ad seems un-American to me - and unfortunately, divisive as some will embrace its message - 'you must like the terrorists if you don't like it' - and those who oppose it.
At what point does this sort of program become the master of the people, where you don't want to become its target by speaking out against it, where members of Congress can be intimidated into supporting it because the public reaction if there are suspicions raised against them can threaten their re-election?
That sort of situation ends up as power in someone's hands, all but guaranteeed to be abused to serve selfish interests.
It's largely how Republicans kept power after the popular Democratic adminiistrations of the New Deal, when they got people to think only Republicans could protect them from the red scare, and how Bush kept power when he was not seen as being a good President by most, when they ran on the idea that only the Republicans took the 'war on terror' seriously enough to protect the country, a vote for Democrats was a vote for allowing the next terrorist attack.
There's another, bettter way to encourage people to report suspicious activity, without the big brother sales pitch.
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