This is my first time back in DC since the Islamic Terror attacks of September 11th. The post-9/11 Washington, DC is a very different place than the city in which I have spent so much time over the years.

Obviously, I was never in wartime London but this is what it must have felt like. While the seats of power in that city were surrounded by sandbags, barbed wire and soldiers, this seat of power is surrounded by anti-terrorism barriers and an open show of marginally civilian firepower.

Broad avenues once open to bustling traffic are now cordoned off with concrete blocks and steel doors. The same goes for monuments and symbolic buildings both important and not. Everywhere you turn there is massive construction going on. That is not new. For as long as I have been coming here DC has been a city in progress; from the building of the Metro to the rehabilitation of whole neighborhoods. The difference this time is that this construction is not for the purposes of civic improvement but for purposes of hiding entire facilities underground for security, the rerouting of the city’s flow to create acres of separation between what are now the fortresses of power rather than the seats of power. The White House and the Capitol Building are in the process of becoming huge compounds within the city, but separated from its flow. Where I remember throngs of tourists and city life mingling with history and government there is now a fearful partition.

The open show of force too is awesome but not reassuring. The security both uniformed and not is massive. But, while not soldiers standing on sentry these men and women are nonetheless not the picture of Officer Friendly of whom one might inquire as to directions when lost. These are almost artificial looking robo-cop types who are frighteningly cold. Far from reassuring they are scary. Where Officer Friendly was ready with a smile yet gave one the feeling that everything was under control, these heavily armored and armed, perfect human specimens reek of the opposite. Making eye contact with one of them instantly draws the attention of the others and you are studied with a reptilian intensity that makes the skin crawl on the back of your neck.

Everywhere we go where those eyes are not directly on us we are on camera; our every move is monitored and logged. Each and every individual outside of the compounds is a threat to the frightened people inside and a hair-trigger stands between us. No one person is in charge, it is an automatic, self-perpetuating system I suppose not that different than the old Nuclear War machine, only this one is pointed not at an external enemy but at us. Yesterday I had to give directions from our Capitol Hill hotel to the White House to our cab driver! Upon alighting from the cab at Lafayette Park we instantly became objects of interest to eyes seen and unseen on rooftops and on the ground. The level of potential threat that we represented was no doubt assessed and evaluated.

This city’s nerves are on edge. The people who lead us are terrified, and that frightens me. What’s even more frightening is that it is we against whom they have fortified our heritage and symbols.

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Mark Williams is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, and Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. His work appears in this publication, on Fox News Channel and nightly on Sacramento’s 1530 AM KFBK radio. For more on Mark and his background visit his web site.