Below you'll find the first installment of what will be a weekly Op-Ed response I'll be posting. For more information about the Op-Eds, please see this post. The Op-Ed below was written by me in response to an article, which I'll link to in each post. This week's link is below:
Link to CNN Article
| “Is Aviation Security Mostly for Show?” | CNN |
| Bruce Schneier | December 29, 2009 |
Bruce Schneier, author of multiple works regarding security in the modern era, writes this article as not just a professional cryptographer and security specialist but also as an ordinary and concerned citizen of America and the world. He examines the post-911 banter and nonsensicality that plagues our discussions on the topic of terrorism and security, and also the effects this has on our actual security. His opinion is this: our thoughts and judgments on how to handle security—and indeed, our very perception of security—have been skewed by the supposed constant modern threats we encounter. He goes further to suggest that not only are we skewed by these threats, but also by threats that do not exist at all.
I chose this article for a number of reasons. Firstly, September 11 is quickly approaching and with it our time to reflect on that day once again. Secondly, I wanted this opportunity to discuss my own thoughts on our nation’s security, but more than that, on our nation’s response to terrorism and the conformity that some people feel they need to pursue in the name of patriotism. In this aspect I agree with the author—no longer should we blindly accept the solutions to terrorism that our leaders present to us. More often than not, they’re doing what will make the American public feel more secure. But this method has a drawback: in the process of presenting us with a solution, they’re enlarging our fear of the threat. Schneier writes in paragraph eight of the article that “No one has ever explained why verifying that someone has a photo ID provides any actual security, but it looks like security to have a uniformed guard-for-hire looking at ID cards.” Merely checking identification does nothing to improve security. However, it does assume some very xenophobic ideas: that those from other countries (without American identification) are unsafe to the point that they might be terrorists. Checking identification publicly also serves as a continuous reminder that we’re in a state of suspicion and that everyone in the area, at any moment, may run into a terrorist threatening their security.
Instead of these phony security measures with their outrageous drawbacks and borderline-constitutional violations, we should work to improve that which legitimately threatens our safety. Consider this: when have you heard of a terrorist causing a nuclear disaster? Now consider the amount of nuclear disasters resulting from our own shortcomings in the industry. Just as recently as last year we encountered the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, an abundance of food recalls related to salmonella, E. coli, and others, as well as just last month nuclear troubles at a plant in Virginia (resulting from the east-coast earthquake) further prove that we can busy ourselves with plenty of legitimate threats before we go insane over the possibilities of nationwide disasters from threats that we cannot conceivably protect against.
