Schneier on Security Theater

Bruce Schneier, who I’ve been informed actually invented the phrase “security theater,” has a brilliant op-ed on last week’s foiled terrorist plot:

It’s reasonable to assume that a few lone plotters, knowing their compatriots are in jail and fearing their own arrest, would try to finish the job on their own. The authorities are not being public with the details–much of the “explosive liquid” story doesn’t hang together–but the excessive security measures seem prudent.

But only temporarily. Banning box cutters since 9/11, or taking off our shoes since Richard Reid, has not made us any safer. And a long-term prohibition against liquid carry-ons won’t make us safer, either. It’s not just that there are ways around the rules, it’s that focusing on tactics is a losing proposition.

It’s easy to defend against what the terrorists planned last time, but it’s shortsighted. If we spend billions fielding liquid-analysis machines in airports and the terrorists use solid explosives, we’ve wasted our money. If they target shopping malls, we’ve wasted our money. Focusing on tactics simply forces the terrorists to make a minor modification in their plans. There are too many targets–stadiums, schools, theaters, churches, the long line of densely packed people before airport security–and too many ways to kill people.

Security measures that require us to guess correctly don’t work, because invariably we will guess wrong. It’s not security, it’s security theater: measures designed to make us feel safer but not actually safer.

And as Schneier points out, the most important thing we can do is not to be terrorized. There aren’t nearly enough terrorists to pose any significant danger to the average American. We should take prudent steps to make terrorism more difficult to accomplish, but we shouldn’t paralyze our air transportation network in a futile effort to drive terrorism down to zero. Confiscating toenail clippers and making people take off their shoes for extra scanning is doing the terrorists’ job for them, by vastly exaggerating the scope of the terrorist threat.

Alarmist op-eds have the same effect:

In recent months, we have become so immersed in political wrangling over the ongoing military actions in Iraq that the potential for sudden death from terrorist attack has become a secondary part of the national debate. We can’t allow that to happen.

The fact that certain groups of Islamic zealots will do anything to destroy American lives and the American way of life has to be a consideration in every political, social and tactical decision we make.

The minor inconvenience of longer waits in airport security lines is far better than again suffering the sort of wanton destruction that changed the nation forever just five years ago.

We suffer “wanton destruction” on par with September 11 on our highways every month, yet no one seriously suggests that the “minor inconvenience” of a 35 mile-an-hour speed limit would be a reasonable response. Every week, twice as many people die from smoking-related illnesses as died in September 11, yet few people support the “minor inconvenience” of banning cigarettes.

Rhetoric like this vastly overstates the scope of the terrorist threat. And that’s precisely what the terrorists hope to accomplish. They know they can’t kill a significant fraction of us (aside from getting their hands on a nuclear weapon–something that confiscating toenail clippers certainly won’t stop), but they’re counting on peoples’ lack of critical thinking skills to do the job for them. If they can kill a few dozen of us every year, they’re counting on our media and our politicians to give their actions far more coverage than they deserve.

Finally, there’s never a bad time to plug Cato’s 2004 article, “A False Sense of Insecurity? How does the risk of terrorism measure up against everyday dangers?” (PDF)

(Hat Tip: Jim Lippard)

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