homeland insecurity

I remember through a quasi-drunken haze an incident @ Las Vegas’ Mc Carren airport last November that still pisses me off immensely.

One of my prized possessions, an engraved zippo lighter, had to be sacrificed up to the TSA gods because I’d forgotten to remove it from my carry on luggage.

Although this particular no-lighter policy has recently been lifted; security expert Bruce Schneier is still skeptical of many of the steps the government is taking to keep us safe in the skies.

There have been exactly two things since 9/11 that have made air travel safer,” Schneier said recently over spring rolls at a favorite Vietnamese restaurant on Nicollet Avenue. “Reinforcing the cockpit door and telling people to fight back in the event of an attack.” After a brief pause, half-devoured roll in hand, he reconsidered. “Well, maybe three,” he said. “I’m on the fence about sky marshals.”

In a recent City Pages article, Bruce goes on to highlight massive spending on practices (like removing our shoes for x-ray inspection) he defines as ’security theatre’; there to give the illusion of safety while not actually making a difference.

He also points out the fear mongering ways of the media, who are quick to showcase sensationalistic ‘plots’ that likely have no possibility of coming to fruition.

Then there was the group of men who planned to blow up Kennedy airport in New York. “You ever been to Kennedy airport?” Schneier asked. “It’s acres wide. You can’t blow up Kennedy airport. And they had a stupid plan that wouldn’t have worked. But we get all panicky. We end up saying, ‘Oh God! These people are going to blow up Kennedy airport!’”

Such fears are examples of what Schneier calls “movie-plot threats”—grandiose scenarios that capture the imagination but are highly unlikely to succeed. “They’re good for scaring people, but it’s just silly to build national security policy around them,” Schneier says.

The whole article will have you rolling your eyes the next time you’re slipping your three oz liquids into a ziplock bag.