October 20, 2008
security theater
Jeffery Goldberg recounts his efforts to test the utility of the TSA's security regime:
Suspicious that the measures put in place after the attacks of September 11 to prevent further such attacks are almost entirely for show--security theater is the term of art--I have for some time now been testing, in modest ways, their effectiveness....at LaGuardia, in New York, the transportation-security officer in charge of my secondary screening emptied my carry-on bag of nearly everything it contained, including a yellow, three-foot-by-four-foot Hezbollah flag, purchased at a Hezbollah gift shop in south Lebanon. The flag features, as its charming main image, an upraised fist clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle. Atop the rifle is a line of Arabic writing that reads Then surely the party of God are they who will be triumphant. The officer took the flag and spread it out on the inspection table. She finished her inspection, gave me back my flag, and told me I could go. I said, "That's a Hezbollah flag." She said, "Uh-huh." Not "Uh-huh, I've been trained to recognize the symbols of anti-American terror groups, but after careful inspection of your physical person, your behavior, and your last name, I've come to the conclusion that you are not a Bekaa Valley-trained threat to the United States commercial aviation system," but "Uh-huh, I'm going on break, why are you talking to me?"
The conclusion - that almost all the security measures in place in American airports are a form of performance theater, aimed nearly exclusively at reassuring a nervous public -- is neither terribly surprising nor particularly comforting.
I'm not sure that's entirely fair. Talk to me if he was carrying a bomb covered in Hezbollah imagery and they let him through. :) But of course, I understand the sentiment.
Posted by: Mark at October 20, 2008 12:31 PMI shouldn't have made it sound as though that example was the one that leads to the conclusion (that security measures are unserious). That example is humorous; the other things that Goldberg does (getting through security using a fake boarding pass, carrying liquids, knives, lighters, etc. through security) are the meat of the article. The broad point that he makes which leads to the above conclusion is that there are so many ways to get around security measures that only a particularly stupid and unimaginative terrorist will be caught by security. Which, I think, is kind of unsurprising -- it is much easier to conceive of one new way to penetrate a set of security measures than it is to design security measures that guard against every likely breach (not to mention every unlikely breach). Which is why Schneider (this guy Goldberg talks to in the article) suggests rolling security back to pre-9/11 levels and spending the difference on "intelligence, investigations, and emergency response".
Posted by: rob at October 20, 2008 2:31 PM