About six months ago, I did an elegant back-of-envelope calculation about the Western Hemisphere Travel Restriction Initiative’s cost in terms of lost freedom and commerce. I came up with an estimate of about half-a-billion dollars (net present value).
If that estimate was a little too airy, here’s a more clear cost of WHTI: $944 million over three years. That’s the direct cost we’re paying through the State Department for the WHTI rules.
So now we’re at around $1.5 billion. Will $1.5 billion+ in damage to the United States’ people, possessions, infrastructure, and interests be averted thanks to WHTI? No. As a security measure, it’s Swiss cheese.
WHTI does more harm than good. It is a self-injurious misstep – precisely what the strategy of terrorism seeks to cause.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.