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Thursday 9 February 2012

A Qualified Defence of Security Theatre

Wednesday, 30th December 2009

What is the point of airport security? It's most important job, it seems to me, is not to deter or even prevent terrorism but to remind the public that there is a terrorist threat. If this was true before the Knicker-Bomber it's even more clearly the case now.

That's not just because Mr Abdulmutallab was able to board his flight to Detroit but because it's apparent, if this was ever in doubt, that just three things have improved airline security since 9/11: reinforced cockpit doors, the increased vigilance of other passengers and the incompetence shown by at least some of the would-be bombers. The rest is just security theatre. (See Bruce Schneier for more on this.)

Tedious and dispiriting and muddle-headed as it is, however, this security theatre does serve a purpose. For without it how many people would remember that there really is a threat? Travelling by air - in Britain or the United States - is one of the few occasions in which an average member of the general public will be confronted by some of the realities of the post-9/11 western world. Security theatre, then, is a massively expensive public information announcement that, while intrusive and often pointless, is actually marginally more subtle than most such campaigns.

Among the downsides to this, mind you, is that we also expect these supposedly-enhanced security systems to be foolproof. But while we have to hope that the intelligence-sharing lessons of this latest attempt are learnt, it would be unwise to suppose that there won't be more such plots in the future and that, eventually, some of them will be successful.

One should neither be sanguine nor terrified by this. It's simply the nature of these things. We have to be lucky all the time; the terrorists only occasionally. We should demand that the intelligence services do their best; we should not expect that to be enough all the time. Sometimes something terrible will happen and sometimes there won't be anyone to blame, no matter how much we cling to the idea that it is is always the case that if someone had done something differently none of this would have happened.

That doesn't seem to be the case in this instance (since, from what we know, this should have been stopped before the plane even took off) but in general the challenge we face is not only in preventing these attacks but in how we respond to them.

One response to attacks on the idea of an open society is to close society. In the immediate aftermath of a successful attack or, as we see this week, even an unsuccessful one, that's always a tempting option. But at some fundamental level doing so concedes defeat and creates exactly the kind of war of civilizations al-Qaeda and its affiliates want to see.

Ultimately defeating this kind of terrorism is both a kind of war and a matter of law enforcement. But in terms of the type of war it is, this isn't one in which casualties are much use in determining the outcome. Because, in the end, it really is a matter of values and the kind of society we wish to live in.

Again, this doesn't mean we shouldn't take sensible precautions, nor that we pretend that the threat is less severe than it is. But, equally, it doesn't require us to get our knickers in a twist every time some lunatic, no matter how malevolent, tries to blow up an airliner. These things are, alas, going to happen and while we need the intelligence services to do their best the important thing is, as a wise piece of government advice once put it, Keep Calm and Carry On.

That being so, ED Kain is right that this is a particularly egregious Maureen Dowd column and while I think Andrew Sullivan's suggestion that Janet Napolitano be fired pour encourager les autres is reasonable, a wholesale purge of the DHS or other agencies seems an over-reaction.

Filed under: Terrorism (289 more articles)

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ndm

December 30th, 2009 11:11pm Report this comment

I think the main thing forgotten in all the fuss about the Detroit terror attempt was that no one was killed. Unlike the rest of the United States where it is likely that more than 40 Americans were killed by their fellow citizens. And this is true each and every day. 16,272 Americans were murdered in 2008 - about 44 per day. In fact, in each and every year more Americans are killed by their fellow citizens than have EVER been killed by foreign terrorists. If there is one thing Americans are good at it is a complete inability to understand relative risk.

ndm

December 30th, 2009 11:14pm Report this comment

The statistics I used in the previous post can be found here.

David Preiser

December 30th, 2009 11:54pm Report this comment

ndm,

Your argument is based on a false premise. You cannot make a valid body count comparison between an incident (nearly) caused by one individual versus the number of deaths caused by numerous perpetrators. The rest of your point is totally worthless as your foundation is non-existent. But any excuse to bash United Statesians, guns 'n racists, etc., eh?

Since I am quite familiar with your knee-jerk, anti-US, far Left worldview and poor debating tactics from your past trolling attempts at the Biased BBC site, this comes as no surprise.

Olaf Rye

December 31st, 2009 12:38am Report this comment

I lived near Detroit for some years and was often in the city. The murder rate there is extraordinary, and I think it has resumed its title as the murder capitol of the US, and the locals often call it the 'Murder City' rather than the 'Motor City'. But, it is worthwhile to bear in mind that the vast majority of the murders in the US are committed by angry spouses or partners, followed by drug killings. I believe that the 'murder by firearm' statistics also include suicides and police shootings of assailants. Still, we perhaps also ought to recognise that there is a nasty and emerging link between drugs and terrorism and that the softly-softly policy of the 1960s and onwards to illicit drugs has had a profoundly destructive influence on communities and now also on terrorist operations.

Austin Barry

December 31st, 2009 1:15am Report this comment

Airport security is as stylised as Noh theatre, but with audience participation. It is also the real interface where Joe Public meets Islam. There you are, tired and anxious, being subjected to these indignities because the murderous, idiot followers of a brutal death cult want you become one of them: to submit. As a consequence this mild-mannered, middle-class, middle-aged former liberal wants to proscribe muslim immigration, tear down their mosques and surrender not one inch to accommodate their beliefs. I suspect I am not alone.

Dara

December 31st, 2009 1:24am Report this comment

I think there's a much better argument for purging lower levels of DHS and keeping Napolitano. It continues to be a mess of a department, but everything I've heard indicates she's really doing a decent job of pulling it together.

ndm

December 31st, 2009 2:38am Report this comment

-- But, it is worthwhile to bear in mind that the vast majority of the murders in the US are committed by angry spouses or partners, followed by drug killings.

The relationship and motive for these murders is shown in this table. Robbery was the most common motive. Gun terrorism is easily the most significant form of terrorism in the United States.

Craig Strachan

December 31st, 2009 5:56am Report this comment

ndm: "Gun terrorism is easily the most significant form of terrorism in the United States."

Right, that's why I got me a gun: to defend against all those gun terrorists.

Beefeater

December 31st, 2009 6:40am Report this comment

ndm: "relative risk"? I usually drop my anxieties of being killed by drunken driving, robber, enraged spouse or drug-gang member when I walk onto an airplane. Even with a mild sedative, I feel a qualm that the risk of dying by terrorist bomb is now fairly in the running relative to dying by pilot error, wind shear, mechanical failure, thrombosis, or salmonella poisoning. As I look about me at my fellow passengers, I admit to a mild queasiness (forgot the Dramamine) knowing that detection systems are one step behind the latest gizmo that the Islamist Johnnies have upgraded to. I have, of course, a life policy, but it would be a bugger to have this flight be the last, just as I've earned enough frequent-flier miles for a free-ish trip. I spot a bloke wearing a yarmulke. I smirk. Air-marshal in mufti. Got some likely lads five rows down who look ready for action. My knickers not in a twist. Though that guy looks as if his are. Wedgie or bomb? Ha ha. Security system not foolproof, eh? Hundreds of fools let through, every flight. Ha ha. Cute flight attendant. No chance there. Scotch please.

Olaf Rye

December 31st, 2009 9:43am Report this comment

Gun terrorism ? Well, when you only allow the state to have weapons, then you pave the way to fascism, which is merely full state control. I was a para and am quite confident in my ability to use a firearm, more so than I am in the ability of the police, so I prefer to take care of my own security rather than leave it to the agents of the state.

JohnBUK

December 31st, 2009 4:24pm Report this comment

Surely given the sheer size of the problem it makes sense to optimise the security processes. Why on earth 90+% of travellers are subject to this theatre when the threat comes from a fairly small group of people who should be subject to some form of racial and traveller profiling. There can still be random tests on the remainder to at least retain some risk to the potential bombers. I suspect if insurance companies were involved in covering the risk they would have some interesting actuarial tables which most of us could guess the key parts of. At which point those airlines carrying the "riskier" elements would have higher costs or more security checks validated by the insurers.
But that brings us to another problem doesn't it? Can't let some people's feelings come before a few hundred deaths can we?

James Strong

January 1st, 2010 2:57am Report this comment

It's possible to have both security theatre to remind travellers of the risk and greater safety.

100% checking of the religio/political/cultural group from within which the problem comes and random checking of everyone else.

Beer Moth

January 1st, 2010 6:06pm Report this comment

ndm

The world is well supplied with people who, for whatever reasons, will resort to violence, right up the scale, to its extreme point of murder. Tragedies all, and something none of us can be proud of.

To attempt to equate this though, with the situation whereby the adherents of a religion, set about planning in intricate detail, the mass murder of innocents, purely on the basis of their random availability and their value as cast members of a spectacular display of wickedness; reveals some special kind of cognitive disarray on your part.

Qualitatively, they are very different.

ndm

January 1st, 2010 8:41pm Report this comment

-- Qualitatively, they are very different.

But far more significant is the quantititave difference whereby every three months more Americans are killed by their fellow citizens than were killed in 9/11 - the largest terrorist operation the World has known.

Furthermore, the last ten years has seen tens, if not hudreds, of thousands of Iraqis killed as an almost inevitable consequence of the ill-planned, ill-conevied US invasion of Iraq. It is quite possible that more Iraqis were killed in the few years when President Bush was responsible for their safety and security than in the four decades when Saddam Hussein was. Frankly, the only choice Bush should be facing today is who gets the top bunk - Saddam Hussein or him.

ndm

January 1st, 2010 8:42pm Report this comment

-- 100% checking of the religio/political/cultural group from within which the problem comes and random checking of everyone else

As I pointed out almost all Americans murdered each year are murdered by their fellow Americans. That is where the true threat lies.

Beer Moth

January 1st, 2010 9:38pm Report this comment

ndm

You keep repeating it to yourself, you might end up believing it.

Beefeater

January 2nd, 2010 6:48am Report this comment

So you're saying that Americans have murdered more Americans than have Islamists.
But haven't Islamists - or even Muslims - murdered more Muslims than they have Americans?
Have Americans murdered more Muslims than Islamists/Muslims have murdered?
Is it relatively riskier to be an American in America or a Muslim in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan?
Is it relatively riskier to be an American in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan (or Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan or Gaza) or a Muslim in any of those places, or a Muslim in Michigan, New York or San Fransisco?
Is it relatively riskier to be a Muslim on a flight targeted by Islamists or an American? Or a Tibetan Monk? Or a Dutch social democrat?

Or is relative risk significant only as an excuse to express your contempt of America?

ndm

January 2nd, 2010 7:21pm Report this comment

Or is relative risk significant only as an excuse to express your contempt of America?

Funny. Oh, so funny. Contempt of America even - and there I thought I was expressing my First Amendment right to analyze the facts and make conclusions from them. I realise others prefer to invoke their First Amendment rights by expressing their prejudice. That is their right and good on them - but me, I prefer to look at the facts and evaluate real risk not phony risks based on ignorance and prejudice.

Beer Moth

January 3rd, 2010 7:45pm Report this comment

ndm

I think you might be onto something with this 'US murder rate is threat to world peace' campaign.

How about domestic accidents in the US as a result of skate boards being left at the top of the stairs? And bees. Yes bees attack hundreds of innocents per annum and we have to stop the madness or we will be forced to suffer the consequences.

We're all pest controllers now!

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