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March 23, 2006
Pointless security theater 3
A few weeks ago I consented to my first subway bag search because I was in a hurry to meet some friends for a road trip so I didn't have time to walk to the next station. I've long been frustrated with the low quality random searching on the subway, feeling it gives the illusion of security, is expensive and serves no serious security purpose. It seems that airline searches, which search every passenger with advanced equipment are likewise deeply flawed.
Boing Boing tipped me off to a report by Bruce Schneier on invasive searches for bombs, guns and knives in airports. It seems screeners suck at finding the dangerous stuff. How bad was it? The "screeners missed 70 percent of knives, 30 percent of guns and 60 percent of (fake) bombs."
Now that isn't to say it is totally useless, as raising the likelihood of being caught does raise the cost of planning a terror attack. To the extent that serious acts of terror require
coordination between several armed assailants, the likelihood of one being discovered and the plot foiled is far blow one person sneaking a weapon onto a airplane. This encourages to take their terror to other places. Likewise, there isn't a lot of evidence that the current search methodology is failing in practice. Sure about a dozen men managed to get their box cutters aboard on September 11, but box cutters were allowed on planes at the time. The fact that they didn't bring guns or bombs a board suggests they thought they have be been caught if they had done so.
I've written before about random searches on the subway.
Posted by OneEyedMan at March 23, 2006 10:18 AM
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