Security theatre: is the cost too high?
The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has an $8 billion annual budget and a 70% failure rate detecting guns, knives, and bomb components in random tests, which raises a question:
Is it worth the cost?
"The 87-13 margin by which readers agreed that ‘changes made to airport security since 9/11 have done more harm than good’ made this the most lopsided result I’ve seen in two years following various debates held by The Economist," said Mitchell Beer.
Beer is president of The Conference Publishers Inc., one of the world’s leading specialists in capturing and repurposing conference content. His remarks were made during a debate put on by The Economist.
The US Travel Association addressed the economic impact of airport screening practices in 2010, finding that two-thirds of recent travelers "would fly more if security procedures were equally as effective as they are now but less intrusive and time-consuming", according to a report on MeetingsNet.
"The top three words respondents use to describe today’s screening process are: ‘inconsistent,’ ‘stressful,’ and ‘embarrassing.’"
The study did not say whether pat downs, full-body scans and other security measures were deterring terrorists.
In the recent debate, Kip Hawley credited more than six billion consecutive safe passenger arrivals since 9/11 to airport security measures. He wrote that from 2006 to 2008 a typical day included "threat discussions" with intelligence analysts of "about half a dozen to a dozen specific, separate, serious plots."
The problem, according to The Economist’s Gulliver blog, is that TSA’s own tests point to a 70% failure rate when officials try to sneak weapons through the security line.
ABC News two years ago told the story of a passenger who accidentally boarded a plane in Houston with a loaded pistol, was shocked when he found it in his carry-on bag, and reported the error to authorities.
None of this comes as a surprise to security specialist Bruce Schneier.
TSA "has not foiled a single terrorist plot or caught a single terrorist" since its formation after 9/11, he said, and its "’good catches’ are forbidden items carried by mostly forgetful, and entirely innocent, people."
Schneier argued that TSA has two categories of terrorists to contend with. One is the amateurs who are likely to be "sloppy and stupid." They are easily caught.
But "security theater" is far less likely to curtail real professionals for one simple reason: TSA policies are based on past schemes rather than thinking up new ones.
"Most voters in The Economist debate bought Schneier’s argument that ‘if we truly want to be safer, we should return airport security to pre-9/11 levels and spend the savings on intelligence, investigation, and emergency response,’" said The Economist.
By David Wilkening
David
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