If You're Watching Everyone, You're Watching No One
from the try-to-focus dept
The idea has become so commonplace that it's almost a cliche: security and privacy are opposites, and we as a society need to decide how much privacy we're willing to give up to get more security. That's been the basic message of the Bush administration over the last few months as they've begun talking about ambitious new plans to monitor more and more of our private communications. But Bruce Schneier points out that the dichotomy is false one. Many of the privacy-invading programs now being discussed don't actually provide more security. Confiscating shaving cream and nail files at the airport doesn't make anyone safer. Neither does creating a national ID card, because terrorists rely on surprise, not anonymity. The fundamental issue is that real security involves focusing resources on identifying and stopping the tiny fraction of the population that is engaged in criminal and terrorist acts. The vast majority of people pose no threat to anyone, and it's a waste of resources to monitor them. Programs focused on the general public, such as the TSA's airport searches, national ID cards, and Internet-wide surveillance are a bottomless drain on law enforcement resources that will turn up far more false positives than real leads. Abandoning them won't just enhance Americans' civil liberties, but it will also free up resources for the sort of difficult, in-depth police work that really does stop terrorist attacks.
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Well, what is their intent?
This is one more step in controlling the populace. Even better since we're asking for it.
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This is similar to the random searches
The comical sight of the old lady suffering the ignominy of a 2nd pat down search as she boards the plane.
Profiling would be consider politically incorrect.
There is a point in Apocalypse Now where Colonel Kurtz kills 3 local Vietnamese and the attacks stop.
The whole idea of profiling is to hone your search criteria to those who may really pose a threat.
The solutions in place now are simple wider and wider nets that catch nothing. Like a farmer fisherman that takes in the whole ocean, bruses the entire lot and throws it all back. Who has the TSA really caught?
It is so true, you try to secure everyone by searching everyone only to have no one safe.
I am disgusted in the state of US Security everytime I fly.
Taking my shoes off, my belt, crotch pat down, luggage opened and "inspected" and yet I feel no safer just more abused.
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Re:
They are playing to the stupid with this you must sacrifice privacy for security... They are 2 halves of the same sphere.
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If the "global dimensions" were actually productive, shouldn't some terrists have been caught at Heathrow, where such measures were taken and where they are cancelling outbound services and delaying long-haul services? Well, never mind context...
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Bruce Schneier is great
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As an Israeli
Once you get used to being checked, patted down and turned inside out everywhere you go - what is left, really? How much liberty?
Not much.You become an obedient sheep.
The Democrats will be no different - they crave power and control as much as the Republicans if not more so.
Baaaaa
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Preach! Preach!
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Random airport searches do make it more difficult for terrorists, becasue there is no pattern, no way to determine who will be searched. Another issue is the longer you stand in line, the longer authorities can look at those standing in line.
Look at how El Al does security. They talk to everyone getting on board. Physical security at its most basic. How many El Al flights have had problems?
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There are two international airports and nine domestic airports. That's it. How many international and domestic airports are there in the US? In Canada? In Europe?
Ben Gurion International Airport handled 10 million passengers in 2007. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport handled over 84 million passengers in 2006. I'm thinking the level of security provided by El Al will not scale up well.
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Before and after 9/11 the amount of flights with security issues due to a person with intent to to take violent action on the flight (regardless of reason or categorical position) is overwhelmingly tiny compared to the number of incident less flights.
Sacrificing parts of the nation's personal privacy is not a balanced course of action against the very meager alleged threat.
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Its too late
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Fully Agree
Bruce Schneier would be awesome as the head of Homeland Security.
If he was, after his changes were implemented, I would almost assuredly feel safer.
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The TSA is a complete joke. Does El Al require all their passengers to remove their shoes before they pass through security? The no-fly list is a farce.
If you want El Al security then demand airports provide that level of security and have airport passengers pay for it. We don't need another government department.
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But box cutters? Are you kidding me? That just shows how cowardly most of our populace is. The people are like fat sheep before the slaughter.
Someone tries to hold me up with a box cutter I'll break the hand hes holding the damn thing with.
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Hmm
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Re: Hmm
It isn't that we should be looking at just "these people", its that the search for just "those people" shouldn't involve prying into people's personal lives.
As a matter of fact, the government agencies should be doing everything in their power to make sure they are never infringing on the privacy and rights of individual Americans UNLESS it can prove to a judge that the individual is a physical threat to one or more other individuals.
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Pertinent quote
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Airport security is a snipe hunt.
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I agree TSA's fast-food approach to security is basically worthless. Much like surveillance cameras, they cannot possibly process ALL information (especially with minimum wage former McDonald's workers) at a single, real-time point and expect to be successful.
Catching terrorists is like breaking the mob: it takes PROFESSIONALS years of stake-outs, infiltration, and paying off/letting off sleazeballs to get to the head of the snake.
Properly fund and restore the morale of the CIA and FBI with the right mission, and we will win.
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Bullshit. "Random" searches as they are now, are driven by politically correctiveness where they are obligated to pull "seemingly random" people aside so that, oh my gosh, we don't discriminate [target] anyone.
The more time spent being "correct", the less time and ability we have to learn and catch who we should be paying attention to.
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Go tell him/her that the government assigning a problem to a specific race/religion/ethnicity is justifiable.
Go do some personal research on past and present societies that did or do target specific ethnic (or sexual, religious, etc..) and learn how disgusting your statement was.
People need to start actually learning from history.
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It really doesn't matter if someone knows a person's name before - or after - they blow themselves up, taking people with them.
Real ID is a method to control us more - not protect us more.
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We can beat the terrorists
I'll bet Osama laughs his ass off about the shoe thing.
When you can die at any moment, from any little thing, why would you live your life so afraid of something has an infinitesimal chance of causing you harm? You've got a better chance of hitting the Powerball than getting blown up by a terrorist.
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Lest anyone think that I was eluding to racial profiling, shame on you.
*Anyone* can be suspicious, but our current practices have removed common sense and judgement from the ideal. Heck, you can argue that they were never a part of it in the first place...
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Not about safety
It's far easier to put a few heavily-armed marines in an airport to make people feel safer than it is to spend money on intelligence-gathering and surveillance. People see the marines in the airport and think something is "being done".
These same people will think it's okay to give up our liberties because "if you're innocent, you've got nothing to hide". I'm sure the 80-year old grandmother and 3-year old child feel that way when they're patted down at the airport.
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First - Completely isolate the passenger compartment from the rest of the plane. No access to the cockpit, no access to the cargo hold, no access to any part of the plane's flight systems. The pilots would have their own bathroom, galley and access to the rest of the plane. Contact between the pilots and flight crew will be by electronic communication only. Second - Make it known that at the first sign of trouble in the passenger compartment, the pilots will completely shut down communications.
If there's no access to the cockpit, a terrorist can't physically take over the plane and if they have no way to talk to the pilot, they can't use the threat of violence to force them to do their bidding.
Of course this wouldn't stop terrorists from blowing up a plane, but it would cut the risk of hijackings to zero.
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say it again: this isn't about improving security.
Government has been bought by the wealthy, and the wealthy consider us -- the other 99% -- as cattle. The better control you have over your cattle, the more profit you can squeeze out of them, and the more cheaply you can sacrifice them.
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Ironically.....
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