Security Theater's Business Is Booming
David Ignatius writes in The Washington Post that it's about time we dialed the paranoia back a notch:
The hyper-security has added as much to public fear (and annoyance) as to public safety. The Transportation Security Administration is so pervasive at airports that we forget how bizarre it is to see old ladies and pregnant mothers and 8-year-old kids frisked and searched as if they had just arrived from Waziristan. Does this really make sense?...Protecting our public servants is important, to be sure. But we have gotten so cranked up about security in the United States that senior officials travel in cocoons, as if they are under constant threat. Every Cabinet secretary seems to have a security detail; so do governors and mayors and prominent legislators.
What are all these security folks protecting our officials from? Al-Qaeda? Hezbollah? Crazy people? Aggrieved constituents? Or is it something more ephemeral -- a nameless, pervasive sense of danger that may suddenly assault the secretary of energy or the governor of New Jersey?
"It does not matter that the war cannot be won, or that when it can it will not be. The entire purpose of war is the consumption of human output." - from The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emanuel Goldstein (as recalled by yours truly, perhaps with a word or two awry).
It furthers the cause of race baiters to bait races. It advances those who get power and money in the "security" racket to make people fearful. This is easy since Americans are constantly taught to call someone else who is qualified to solve their problem, however slight.
Radwaste at August 9, 2009 8:37 AM
I had a 90 minute layover in Portland Friday. I sat and watched 4-5 TSA employees do nothing for the entire time. They just waited by the door where we were to board, and then left when our boarding instructions were announced.
Eric at August 9, 2009 10:10 AM
If you add up the cost of all its effects, including what we've done to ourselves in the name of "security", and compare that to the cost of the operation, 9-11 has to be the most successful attack in history.
Rex Little at August 9, 2009 10:42 AM
"If you add up the cost of all its effects, including what we've done to ourselves in the name of "security", and compare that to the cost of the operation, 9-11 has to be the most successful attack in history."
Bingo - I doubt the terrorists could ever have predicted the way in which they would succeed, but they have indeed succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The expense is the least of it - the loss of freedom and massive increases in central authority are transforming the US, the UK and other countries.
bradley13 at August 9, 2009 12:02 PM
Yeah, they succeeded themselves to death.
Seriously, we've got a bunch of fucked up whiners. Yeah, the security theater is bullshit. It hasn't done much in the way of security improvements.
But killing the terrorists? That's done a lot to improve security.
We're inconvenienced, they're dead. I find it hard to call that a victory for the terrorists.
brian at August 10, 2009 7:45 AM
"But killing the terrorists? That's done a lot to improve security."
A terrorist, or at least a potential terrorist, is someone who is seriously pissed off at the USA, and who would happily take an opportunity for some sort of gruesome direct action.
One can argue that military action in Afghanistan has done something to improve security, since it was (at least originally) a focused effort to hunt down Al Queda.
However, the action in Iraq has been entirely counterproductive. There were essentially no terrorists in Iraq - now there is an entire country full of them. Add in the long term loss of security from additional billions of foreign debt.
bradley13 at August 10, 2009 10:38 PM
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