Once again, the post-9/11 American "security" system has revealed its true, farcical nature. Yesterday the news broke that it was the Bush administration and not Tom Ridge that was constantly pushing for "elevated" and "high" terror alert status, with little or no basis in the intelligence. (See this AP wire report in
the Kansas City Star, Wednesday's posting on myDD, or search
google news for more coverage.)
Today we had the Cessna 150 scare, where a two-seater aircraft 1/3 the weight of a typical automobile with a cruising speed of 110 mph strayed into the large (~30 mile) "temporary" Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) restricted airspace above Washington DC. This horrifying event triggered scrambled fighter jets, the evacuation of the capitol building and the Supreme Court, and breathless coverage on CNN and (presumably) Fox News. Did this actually present a threat?
As the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association notes: "The
suicide crash of a Cessna into a Tampa office building demonstrates the
ineffectiveness of a general aviation aircraft as a terrorist weapon." (Quote from Declan McCullagh post on Politech)
In other words, no.
Could there have been unconventional weapons or explosives? Sure. But until SUVs are banned from parking near public buildings and buses are banned entirely from our nation's capitol, surface vehicles will pose a far greater threat than general aviation aircraft. And until the Amtrak train tunnel that runs almost directly beneath the Capitol and Supreme Court building is shut down, we shouldn't even bother with worrying about restricting surface vehicles. (Much of this information is culled from Declan's list and the excellent commentary of several list posters, as well as Declan himself.)
America has become obsessed with the trappings of security. We fetishize fighter jets, restricted airspace, bag matching at the airport, metal detectors and thumb-print scanners. Do we know what our threat models are? Do we care? No. What we want is the appearance of security -- the very expensive appearance -- not the substance. Because the substance of security requires an honest assessment of our vulnerabilities, the practical tradeoffs of risk and benefit, and -- ultimately -- the acknowledgment that safety in any absolute sense is unattainable.
We'd much rather go fight a war -- any war -- than acknowledge that we don't know who our enemies really are. We'd much rather kill tens of thousands of people than acknowledge that we can't keep our families safe. We'd much rather believe in an action-movie fairy-tale of violence and revenge than acknowledge the corruption and cynical manipulation of the political system that is destroying our free society.
Pseudosecurity is just like pseudoscience -- at best it is a comfort to the ignorant, at worst a pernicious, expensive, and destructive force. The only way to stop it is to question it, as individuals and as a society. This is costing us billions of dollars and thousands of lives. It is destroying our free society. And it is not making us any safer.