The American Populace is being inconvenienced, spied on, stripped of Constitutional Rights, and taxed without any idea where that money is going. The perpetrator is not some foreign, militant, activist group, it’s our own Government. There’s no outcry. All of these treacheries are being committed to increase security while the fact remains that all of these drastic measures have failed miserably. The one constant is the relentless pursuit and protection of these programs by our elected officials. They should be the voice of the populace, and perhaps they are. Perhaps, ‘Security Theatre’ is good enough for the masses.
There’s been a lot of coverage for a while about the inconsistencies and problems with the U.S. and it’s failed attempts at providing real security. We have Airport Screeners missing 20 of 22 bombs in a live test of security conducted by TSA. The New Scientist argues that most of the $44 BILLION spent on bioterrorism defense has been wasted. Recently, a bright young student at University of Indiana made a fake boarding pass program. The interesting thing is this sort of thing had been documented several times before.
Blame, of course, fell on this unsuspecting young student. He crossed the line. He made it _EASY_ for people to do this. See, that’s the problem with these terrorists. They’re inherently lazy. They have no drive or ambition that would push them to open up MS Paint and digitally alter the image of a boarding pass. That would require about 15 minutes, and terrorists certainly don’t have 15 minutes to spare to circumvent poor security measures. The blame is misplaced. TSA should be raided by the FBI. Their lives should be disrupted and their houses sacked.
But we won’t point the finger at our security measures, certainly not Airport Security. The fact is that good security measures could be developed that introduce little inconvenience into the picture for the end users. However, I’m not entirely sure that would make people feel better. This isn’t about real security or fighting terrorism. It’s about being affected on a personal level by these security measures.
I don’t fly much. Not because I’m afraid of terrorists, I rarely have the need to fly. However, when I do, and I’m stuck in the long security lines at Airports, I can’t help but over hear people talking about how “at least we know we’re safe on the plane.” Depending on my relative proximity to these conversations, I will tend to pipe up and explain the fault with the systems to my fellow travellers. The response has not been good. Now, they’re standing in a long line, wasting time, and Airport Screeners missed 20 out of 22 bombs. Oddly enough, they kill the messenger. Most of them just ask me to stop talking and then mutter under their breaths about how I don’t really know what I’m talking about.
They want to feel secure, not be secure. For these people, and they represent the masses, Security Theatre is not just good enough, it’s the requirement. They may complain about it and rant, but if after 9/11 (take a shot if you’re playing along at home), they weren’t forced to stand in ridiculous lines and have underpaid, uninterested security guards look at their personal effects and throw their lip gloss in a trashcan labeled ‘contraband’, they’d be disoriented and petrified. Sure, you think they’re scared now, but I really don’t think that air travel would’ve recovered as quickly as it did post 9/11 (*shot*) if people hadn’t been grotesquely inconvenienced.
There’s a problem with the perception of Security. I see it in my day to day duties as a System Administrator / Programmer / Security Administrator. If I had a nickel for every time I heard “security is getting in my way,” I’d be set. People perceive security as inconvenience these days. If they’re not being inconvenienced, then they’re pretty sure they’re not secure. Nothing is going to change with the large scale security systems in this country until we change the perception of security.
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