Security

Last week I went to a lecture by Bruce Schneier, security expert and author of the new book Beyond Fear. He said that people often frame the security debate as one of safety versus liberty, but that this is a false opposition. Usually the best way to guarantee safety is liberty. He said that law enforcement has an irrational bias in favor of accreting power and data, but this doesn’t ever seem to make citizens safer. (“When you’re trying to find a needle in a haystack, adding more hay doesn’t help.”) He said that only three measures enacted since 9/11 have actually made air travel safer: 1) Reinforcing cockpit doors, 2) Putting air marshals on planes, and 3) Telling passengers to fight hijackers. He said that drawing up watch lists and requiring multiple IDs is a complete waste of time, because we don’t have a reliable list of the bad guys and we never will. He talked about debating someone from the TSA on the radio. The TSA guy said, “If someone’s sitting next to you on a plane, you want to know who they are.” Schneier’s retort is, “If someone’s sitting next to me on a plane, what I want to know is ‘Are they planning to blow up the plane?’ If they’re not planning to blow up the plane, then I don’t care who they are. And you know what? Even if they are planning to blow up the plane, I still don’t care who they are. I just want them to not blow up the plane.” He said that people in favor of increased surveillance and identification often ask him on the radio, “If you’ve got nothing to hide, what do you care what people know about you?” To this he replies, “What’s your salary?” The only response he ever gets is embarrassed stammering.