Insecurity and security overkill



Bruce Shneier - American security consultant

 

I want to talk about insecurity, why we all feel it, why we feel the need to get rid of it and why that need should stop.

 

13th January 2002, 46 year old airline pilot, Elwood Menear was checking in through security, when they found a pair of tweezers. They weren't on any banned list, but they paused, long enough for Menear to ask a sarcastic question. "Why are you worried about tweezers when I could crash the plane?" That would cost him a night in jail, suspension from US airways and months of legal battles before eventually being acquitted of 'making terroristic threats' and being able to go back to work.

 

Bruce Schneier commented, "There are precisely two things that have made air travel safer since 9/11: locks on cockpit doors, and teaching passengers that they have to fight back. ‘You can argue that there’s a third – sky marshals. But actually, once you tell people you have them, you don’t really need them. It’s the idea of sky marshals that makes us safer, not the marshals themselves."

 

And the point Schneier was making is, no matter how much 'stuff' you ban, terrorists will always be one step ahead. They are prepared to die on that plane, that's the difference.

 

So why do Governments want to make air travel so obnoxiously, tediously, painful? Not because they think it will make a jot of difference to actual safety, rather that it will ease the minds of it's citizens and offer 'security' and peace of mind.

 

Gone are the days of Hobbes' 'Brutal and short lives' and in are the creature comforts and complete switched off, uber safe lifestyles of Western Civilisations. We want to feel safe, we pay taxes so our Government will protect us from all harm and we need that security blanket that no one can hurt us.

 

News flash: Driving your car is more dangerous than flying in a plane. Our brains are all screwed up, to correct Aristotle, we are capable of rational thought, but we are not rational beings.

 

We react to things rather than listen to expert advice and think things through with a rational brain and we allow Governments to smother us in 'security blankets' that make life pretty unbearable whilst at the same time not really increasing our security at all.

 

In fact, when seatbelt laws were enforced in Britain, people felt 'safer' so they took greater risks on the roads. Far safer if compulsory steel spikes were fitted to steering wheels to impale our hearts in event of a crash and we would doubtless see road fatalities drop rather dramatically.

 

As comfortable Westerners we crave the pipe and slippers and look to Government to supply it, when in fact we should be more accepting of risk, to a degree, embrace freedoms more and live a happier lifestyle.