Showing posts with label security theater. Show all posts

The Wages of Fear: Closing the Washington Monument


Great column from security guru Bruce Schneier on how DHS and the Park Service should go about securing the Washington Monument. He says, close the damn thing until we're ready to admit that security theater doesn't work, and only helps to assuage our fears (h/t Marginal Revolution).

Securing the Washington Monument from terrorism has turned out to be a surprisingly difficult job. The concrete fence around the building protects it from attacking vehicles, but there's no visually appealing way to house the airport-level security mechanisms the National Park Service has decided are a must for visitors. It is considering several options, but I think we should close the monument entirely. Let it stand, empty and inaccessible, as a monument to our fears.

An empty Washington Monument would serve as a constant reminder to those on Capitol Hill that they are afraid of the terrorists and what they could do. They're afraid that by speaking honestly about the impossibility of attaining absolute security or the inevitability of terrorism -- or that some American ideals are worth maintaining even in the face of adversity -- they will be branded as "soft on terror." And they're afraid that Americans would vote them out of office if another attack occurred. Perhaps they're right, but what has happened to leaders who aren't afraid? What has happened to "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"?

An empty Washington Monument would symbolize our lawmakers' inability to take that kind of stand -- and their inability to truly lead.

...

The empty monument would symbolize our war on the unexpected, -- our overreaction to anything different or unusual -- our harassment of photographers, and our probing of airline passengers. It would symbolize our "show me your papers" society, rife with ID checks and security cameras. As long as we're willing to sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety, we should keep the Washington Monument empty

No one remembers this, but back in the Eighties, some nut drove a panel van up to the Monument and announced that he had placed a bomb in it. (I don't remember if he had any demands ,but do remember that he was a middle aged white guy). After a several hours long televised stand-off, the nut was shot dead. When authorities opened up the truck they found...nothing. No bomb. No danger. A perfect example of how terrorism attacks the mind and the soul more than it targets people and things.

Counter-terrorism as practiced in the US treats everybody in the country as a potential terrorist. This despite the fact that virtually none of the people being "investigated" through pat-downs and purse-searches are terrorists. The joke is that we all know who the terrorists are, and can probably agree on five characteristics that would identify 90+ percent of all terrorists...but the security professionals assure us that the one thing they cannot do is rely on that sort of thing because it's "profiling." How convenient that they can just turn off their brains and do mass searches of the innocent public, rather than actually use their heads and do some actual counter-terrorism. (and how reminiscent of Viet Nam-era metrics of success like body counts).

Security pros always have a ready retort: hey, if there's another big attack, it'll be our heads because the public will be furious that we didn't connect the dots. But, dots don't connect because you put tourists through magnetometers. They get connected by police work and intelligence, but these are fatally hampered by a legal environment that practically guarantees the present dysfunctions. Pre-9/11, you couldn't connect the dots because the legal left had convinced the government that the FBI and CIA could not communicate with each other, among many other things. Post-9/11, that same legal left has been resisting any and all attempts to rationalize the collection of useful intelligence, or use the dread profiling, to combat terrorists both at home and abroad. All we are left with are pat-down at airports and tourist destinations, which at least have the virtue of simplicity. (and don't tell me the practitioners of punitive liberalism don't secretly thrill to the sight of middle class Americans having to choose between porno scanners or a genital grope).

The fact is that the only way to combat terrorism is to go out and find them and either kill them or take them to GITMO. America's expensive and disruptive security theater has nothing to do with this, and indeed is everyday becoming a substitute.


America XXX: Security Theater


Drudge has been highlighting stories about the brewing revolt against the TSA's full body scanners, which were pressed into service after last Christmas' abortive underwear bomber nearly brought down a Detroit bound airliner. A guy in San Diego was kicked out of the airport for refusing the proffered choice of either a full body scan, or a pat-down that included genital manipulation. (to get on an airplane??). He wrote about his experience here in great detail. There is also a video going around showing an outrageous TSA body-search of a three year old girl.

There is also a brewing showdown with TSA involving pilots and other flight crew members, who desire neither repeated exposure to the scanners' radiation, or the degrading experience of having your private parts touched, all so we are not accused of the dread racial profiling, even though we all can list the five characteristics common to virtually all plane-borne terrorists.

As you might expect, Free Will was on this issue last year, but since my analysis appeared on New Years Eve, it kind of got lost in the shuffle. Here's a refresher. I think it still holds up.
I think there is a bigger problem with whole body scans: they are completely degrading. Call me old fashioned, but the idea of some TSA time-puncher watching hundreds of Americans pass by everyday in a state of x-rayed undress is not something that society should consider acceptable. Is TSA going to be looking at naked images of nuns? Little kids? My wife?

This undated file photo from 2007 shows a person hiding a knife ...

Security experts swear that "if only we had been able to full body scan the Pants Bomber," he would have never gotten on that flight to Detroit. Oh, bulls***. Airport security is the second to last line of defense (passengers are the last line). Our expensive security services are supposed to be doing everything they can to make sure bombers can't get on the plane in the first place. How's that working out? Not well, as it seems a half-dozen security services knew about this guy, and yet he could still get a visa to enter the US carrying no luggage. Before subjecting civilians to full body scans, could we at least subject our intelligence community to brain scans to see if there's any activity upstairs?

We've spent the last eight years standing in long chaotic lines at the airport. We no longer can indulge in the old ritual of greeting our loved ones at the gate. We've been taking off our shoes. We've been taking off our belts. We've been emptying our pockets, and then elbowed by jerk screeners retrieving their gray plastic bins. And, of course, we've been pulled aside for extra screening, regardless of race, age, nationality, or travel history. Why? All so certain people, say, young Nigerian Muslims who travel to Yemen, won't be subject to "profiling." And, so no TSA employee ever has to use their brain.

If it really is our fate to have full body scans, can we at least subject only the 500,000-odd people who are on the government's various watch lists - which no one seems to consult, anyway - to that sort of screening? That would be a lot more rational than making all 300 million Americans go through an increasingly degrading process to no good effect.
I still can't believe that scans have been rolled out without the government - especially one that is run by the sort of ACLU types who are forever searching out new unreasonable searches and seizures - considering whether people would accept them as legitimate. At the very least, they should be limiting the full body scans to the people on the government's watch list, simply as a matter of efficiency and conserving resources, but TSA seems intent on potentially scanning everybody.


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