Is there a reason why the concept of "security theater" hasn't caught on in the mainstream? It seems like it should be easy to oppose things that make us feel safer but objectively make us less safe.
I experienced "security theater" just this past weekend coming back from Nashville. As the line for the x-ray scanner started to grow, they started letting people just go through the metal detectors. Once the line shrunk back down, they started forcing people to go through the scanner again.
I opted out of the scanner just as they started letting people go through the metal detector again. The TSA agent told me, "you know these are completely safe and no human sees the pictures anymore, right?" If I had gotten in line just a few seconds later, I wouldn't have had to go through the scanner or be subject to the enhanced pat down. I mentioned this to the TSA agent doing my screening and he said, "sometimes timing is everything". If the scanners are as necessary as they want us to think, I'm glad to know that the chance that my plane gets blown up doesn't depend on how well those scanners work but simply on whether a would-be bomber went through security during a busy period.
The TSA has an absolutely abysmal record for catching weapons and explosives during security audits.
The most embarrassing bit of security theater is that, even if these new devices were safe, even if they were necessary, even if they were effective at presenting the relevant data to their operators, that those operators simply do not catch actual weapons ~80% of the time. [1]
And that number has been that bad year after year after year.
Truly, a given flight's chance of getting blown up depends on little more than the chance that someone capable is trying to blow it up.
The only comfort to be found is in the relative difficulty in assembling a suitable explosive and the low co-incidence of that skill alongside murderous intent.
I went through security screening in LAX with a large pocket knife in my onboard luggage. IT was a mistake on my part - I'm glad they didn't find it because the knife has sentimental value to me.
I also went through a full-body scanner at MCO for the first time recently. It's not faster - in fact it is a giant bottleneck. Instead of just walking through, as per a metal detector, you have to stand there like an idiot with your arms above your head, for what seems like an eternity. If you move, the TSA resident rottweiler barks at you and the whole process is repeated.
In the meantime, you have 400 or so people jammed up in an unsecured area wiating to be processeed, which is a far-worse security risk than being on the plane.
But the worrying thing is - is this a ratchet? Will it be politically untenable to ever relax the security screening? I shudder to think at the GDP lost by people standing in airport screening queues. It's like a giant 24 hour stop-work protest that never ends. Even if only 1% of the time wasted would otherwise be productive work, well....
> The TSA has an absolutely abysmal record for catching weapons and explosives during security audits.
I know I'm expressing a view that's probably been expressed.
Nevertheless, I hope you can explain how/why this statement is wrong: "The scanners are deterring people from carrying weapons right now. If the scanners were removed, there would be more people carrying weapons."
I suppose you could argue that the people who really want to carry weapons wouldn't be stopped by a scanner. Then again, there are definitely "impulse crimes", where people are driven to commit crimes based on nothing but impulse/pent up anger. Those people would have been stopped by scanners, but are let through, if there were no/less effective scanners.
Regarding "impulse" crimes--I don't see why such crimes are that much more of an issue on a plane than anywhere else. My understanding of psychology is naturally imperfect, but I don't think that a hijacking would be an impulse crime.
I could see why explosives would be more dangerous on a plane than elsewhere. However, people don't generally carry large amounts of explosives with them for no good reason, so explosives also don't lend themselves to impulse crime.
Other dangers, like getting shot or stabbed--something that is actually likely to be an impulse crime--are not much more dangerous on a plane than on the ground. Since we're perfectly content running the risk of being shot walking around outside, I don't see why airports would need special security just to prevent impulse crimes.
Of course, this is not an argument against all airport security. While I am personally against it, I would have to spend more time and do some research before being confident of making a compelling case against it. I'm just explaining why I think preventing impulse crimes would not be a good reason for tight security at airports.
A certain number of people die from vaccines (side effects, negligence etc) every year. That's a fact. Do we stop vaccinating? No, we don't, because the number of lives saved is probably >10000X the cost.
I've seen this same scenario in play many times in different airports. In some larger airports (IAH) they only have 1 body scanner but way more volume than it can handle, so they will have two other lines going through standard metal detectors. I just stand in one of those lines and bypass the scanner. The last time I asked a TSA guy how to request a pat down and not go through the scanner he got visibly annoyed and started loudly proclaiming how safe the scanners were, its just an X-ray, yadda yadda.
>As the line for the x-ray scanner started to grow, they started letting people just go through the metal detectors. Once the line shrunk back down, they started forcing people to go through the scanner again.
That's not even limited to airports. I've seen it on festivals and concerts as well, and I'm sure it extends to other public events. Most notably I remember the security checks at the entrances of the infield on the Wacken Open Air 2010. When Iron Maiden or other very popular bands played, they just waved everyone through. It was ridiculous, really.
Also, there's a really amazing video[1] from a German talkshow on Youtube where Werner Gruber[2] completely embarrasses one of the most fervent supporters of the body scanners, Wolfgang Bosbach[3] of the CDU party. He easily smuggles enough thermite to blow a decent hole into the wall of a plane through a body scanner, and later demonstrates its destructive capabilities on a frying pan.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrKvweNugnQ - German, I sadly cannot find a subtitled version, though it's quite possible to understand the basic gist by merely watching what Gruber does (he's the slightly chubby guy with the red tie).
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Bosbach - Quite uninformative, the German version is much better. He's a supporter of all sorts of completely ridiculous laws and measures, including a ban of "Killer Games" (violent video games) and all sorts of surveillance and anti-privacy laws.
The irony there is that moving people through the line faster when it's busy is actually the right security decision... It's just also the right decision other times.
The Continental Terminal in LaGuardia is still using metal detectors and the TSA personnel there tend to keep the line moving pretty quickly, considering its a serious bottleneck.
As far as I can tell, it hasn't caught on because Americans don't want to hear it. We seem to have a deep problem with denial. Sure, people might join in on chastising the TSA for a particular mistreatment of a passenger. But overall they just don't want to think about the idea that there's no real solution to terrorism.
They certainly don't want to confront the idea that sometimes, despite setting our minds and hundreds of billions of dollars against a problem, that we can't solve anything; let alone consider the notion that we might have made things much worse for trying.
Look no further than the War on Drugs. It's been clear for decades that by every objective measure it's a (barbaric, costly) accelerant for exactly the kinds of social problems it was conceived to fight. But it's still deeply unpopular to say that.
>> Look no further than the War on Drugs. It's been clear for decades that by every objective measure it's a (barbaric, costly) accelerant for exactly the kinds of social problems it was conceived to fight. But it's still deeply unpopular to say that.
I think you're right about the War on Drugs being a failure but wrong about this being an unpopular viewpoint.
It's commonly thought to be a failure, but it's politically incorrect to propose any solution other than doing the same thing we're doing now, only harder.
I consider this one of the most common failure cases of government; if they don't stumble on the essentially-correct policy the first time out, it becomes virtually impossible to change it later because it involves someone (possible very large and powerful someones) having to admit they were wrong. For another example where the only acceptable solution is "the same, only more more more", see school reform. "Everybody" knows that isn't going to work, but nothing else is acceptable.
Perhaps "unpopular" was the wrong way to phrase things.
"You don't hear it very often/emphatically from the mainstream media, nor spoken aloud by anyone in a position to change policy, nor spoken aloud by anyone who has a serious desire to gain the positions that could change policy."
I suspect it is the same reason that "auto repair theater" or "computer repair theater" or even "movies-that-are-garbage-but-pass-as-entertainment theater" still exist. It is nearly impossible to be well-educated in every facet of one's life, and people need to pick and choose what they become knowledgeable about. Security is both a new enough topic that most people don't realize its importance and a complex enough topic that it isn't easy to really understand.
Most people want to be safe; they don't want to understand security.
I think part of the problem is that a significant portion of the US doesn't fly often enough to be greatly inconvenienced by this. And, of course, the media can always find people willing to say "Well, if it will make us safer..."
Imagine the outcry in New York if they announced that they were going to install metal detectors and x-ray machines at the entrance to every subway stop. --That would (hopefully) never be implemented because the number of people who would complain and campaign against such measures would be much higher.
Well, they did do random bag checks at random subway stops for a while. It was always half-assed and you were not compelled to let them search your bag, you could just turn around and walk a few blocks to the next stop where they were not checking bags. It was all Security Theatre to make all of us here in NYC "feel safer" and let us know the NYPD was "on top of things". From a security standpoint it was absolutely pointless and people did get annoyed.
In the past I would have agreed. But I've seen the "imagine the outcry" argument brought up, the thing is later implemented, there is brief murmering, police crack down on the few hard core dissenters, then the masses begin to chant "Well of course we have to xray everyone getting on the subway, it's the only way we can be safe."
I have traveled with people who are happy with the situation, they don't understand whats going on, and are very happy to give up out freedom for a insignificant increase in security.
Seven syllables is too many. But you're right, the article glosses over the bigger issue than the two it mentioned: these measures don't help security and very strong cases can and have been made that it actually hurts security.
Because the 'mainstream' is still largely controlled by the 'powers that be' and there isn't a clear distinction between those that ultimately influence the ideas in the mainstream and those benefit greatly from a marginalized society.
Security theater benefits those in the oligarchy in two ways: highly profitable contracts for expensive machines, and a normalization of invasion of privacy.
Alas too many people ignore other people's objectivity and pay attention to their own feelings instead. And then they notice that many "objective" people say the security measures that make them "safer" really put them at increased "risk", and wonder what hidden agenda these "objective" people have and whose side they're really on.
