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Tim Lee

Security Theater

Matt Yglesias offers some level-headed advice to the TSA:

Call me crazy, but I don’t see what kind of sense a ban on liquid travel on airplanes is. To be sure, letting people carry soda or shampoo onto an airplane could (apparently) allow them to conceal an explosive. And a bomb going off on an airplane would be a very bad thing. But by the same token, a bomb going off on a crowded Metro or Armtrak car would be quite bad. Hell, a bomb going off on a crowded airport security line snaking back and forth as everyone waits to have their bags searched for offending liquids woud be really point. At some point, common sense needs to kick in.

Banning firearms on airplanes is an inconvenience that is very effective at halting what could otherwise be a very easy method of hijacking airplanes since guns are pretty easy to obtain. It’s fairly clear, however, that permitting people to carry liquid aboard planes doesn’t necessarily lead to a rash of airplane-bombings. It is, however, a huge inconvenience for travelers.

Worst of all, it’s at best a minor inconvenience for terrorists. If you had a cell with some working liquid explosive devices ready to be set off, you could react to the ban by setting them off someplace other than an airplane. As outlined above, I would suggest a crowded rush hour Metro car.

This is what Jim Harper aptly calls security theater. We’ve given the TSA virtually unlimited powers and instructed them to accomplish an impossible task. As a result, they’ve taken to adopting erratic, reactionary, and comically ineffective anti-terrorism tactics. One terrorist tries to put explosives in his shoe? Make hundreds of millions of Americans take their shoes off when they go through security. Some terrorists try to smuggle liquid explosives on the plane? Ban Americans from carrying on liquids. And while you’re at it, require people to show you their IDs, close parking spaces close to the airport, subject people to random pat-down searches, ban tweezers and toenail clippers from carry-on luggage, etc, etc.

Life involves risks. Every form of transportation is dangerous. Even with the terrorist threat, airplanes remain among the safest of transportation modes. Yet thanks to the bizarre incentives of the political process, and the fact that terrorist attacks on airplanes make better news stories than car crashes, we remain obsessed with the miniscule dangers from terrorist attacks, while we think nothing of getting in our car and driving across country, an activity that, statistically speaking, is far more dangerous.

August 11, 2006 | Comments |

  • dennis parrott
    ...or we could adopt something like the Swiss approach to homeland security...

    it used to be that EVERYONE in Switzerland was required as they became of age to report for mandatory military training. part of that training was to learn how to properly care for and use firearms. i suggest that every American be told to report for training and then as you board public transport, you will be issued a firearm. the standing order will be to shoot to kill anyone who in any way threatens the safety of the plane.

    who needs air marshalls?
  • Cog
    Right, because if a group of terrorists causes a shootout on an airplane, that won't have any disruptive effects on air travel. Also, it's not like the random distribution of passenger behavior includes episodes of drunken air rage. Give me a break.

    BTW Tim, the term "security theater" originates, as far as I know, with Bruce Schneier. Jim Harper was quoting him.
  • Jim Harper
    Thank you, Cog. You are correct. I clicked over from the feed to point that out.
  • Call me crazy, but I don't see what kind of sense a ban on liquid travel on airplanes is. To be sure, letting people carry soda or shampoo onto an airplane could (apparently) allow them to conceal an explosive. And a bomb going off on an airplane would be a very bad thing. But by the same token, a bomb going off on a crowded Metro or Armtrak car would be quite bad.


    You're knowledge of physics is a bit limited.
    When an Airplane is at elevation, it is pressurized. To keep airplanes as light and as efficient as possible, the structure is deliberately made as light as possible, thus making the body of the airplane susceptible to over pressure. So the same bomb on the metro that I take to work might kill two or three, whereas, on an airplane, it would kill the entire flight (say 350 people). Furthermore, even a stray shot in an airplane, which could blow out a window and lead to loss of life, (how long would you last at -40?) so it wouldn't be good for everyone to be armed in an airplane.


    Second, the airplane network is a key component of the global economy, and the concept of network disruption is well-understood by al-Qeada. Of course, the network disruption effects also work as in the Madrid and London bombings for the trains, but their aim is clearly massive network disruption, to destroy the economy. That's why it should be clear their long term aim will be to deploy biological weapons.


    If you are interested in more about this, I'd suggest you look at John Robb's blog, Global Guerillas

  • CM
    This reminds me: I recently traveled cross country on Amtrak. Want to know their security procedures? Nothing. I didn't see an X-Ray machine in sight, let alone individual scanners. I'm quite sure I could have brought pretty much anything onboard that I wanted. Knives, guns, etc.




    Of course, Amtrak is such an underutilized form of transportation that the likelihood of anything of substance happening on there (let alone it being used as a terrorist bombing station) are miniscule.





    Secondly, if you look at the pattern of terrorist attacks (I haven't looked into this too thoroughly, just from my own perspective), it seems to be that they want to kill a great deal of people while making a point. Blowing up a plane is very bad, but hijacking one and crashing it into one of the hubs of capitalism and the international economy while murdering 3000 people? Point made.





    They want to kill a lot of people and make a point. This is why the planes went to the WTC, because the Statue of Liberty wouldn't have cost nearly as many lives.





    They always go big on these things.





    *sigh*

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  • yes, the system is still vulnerable but not to the point as to make passengers not want to fly because of the inconvenience. terrorist may strike anywhere, anytime but we can make it more difficult for them.
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