Close the Washington Monument

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/12/close_the_washi.html

by psadauskas • 16 years ago

211 54 16 years ago

"The day after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed to blow up a Northwest jet with a bomb hidden in his underwear, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said "The system worked." I agreed. Plane lands safely, terrorist in custody, nobody injured except the terrorist. Seems like a working system to me."

If he got on the plane with the bomb in the first place, doesn't that imply the system doesn't work?

Shamiq• 16 years ago

>>If he got on the plane with the bomb in the first place, doesn't that imply the system doesn't work?

I think that means part of the system had a failure, but that failure did not propogate catastrophically. If anything, this is reminiscent of a working AND resilient system.

anamax2• 16 years ago

Which system are we talking about?

The "keep bombs off of planes" system failed.

The "keep folks from blowing up bombs on planes" system succeeded.

Note that the former is what the US govt is claiming to do while the latter was entirely the doing of random folks on the plane.

Do we have any instances of air marshals stopping anyone? I ask because both the shoe and underwear bomber were handled by ordinary people.

adamesque• 16 years ago

Exactly. Every system will experience failure; it's how the system responds to the failure that is so important.

You can only reject the robustness principle ("Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle) if you can completely control the input 100% of the time.

eftpotrm• 16 years ago

The bit that worked though, both for this and Richard Reid's shoe bomb, was that passengers - not air marshals - noticed the terrorist trying to set light to something in the main cabin area.

All it takes is a terrorist bright enough to try and set light to their bomb in the toilet rather than sitting surrounded by other passengers while fiddling with a fuse and lighter, and the system has failed. These attacks are failing because the chosen attackers are stupid, not because the system is effective.

Air Marshals. 4.2 arrests per year average, $200m per arrest. A very, very expensive comfort blanket.

eli• 16 years ago

It's not ideal, but I'm pretty sure I can live with a system that lets faulty bombs through.

jrockway• 16 years ago

I could live with a system that lets working bombs through, too. I didn't stop flying after Pan Am Flight 103. Why was 9/11 so different? (More people died? But many, many, many more people die of preventable heart disease. Why do we have a war on people flying planes into buildings and not a war on heart disease? I don't want to die of either, and a bad diet seems a lot riskier than a random wacko hijacking a plane and flying it into stuff. Right!?)

I blame the cable-news rating frenzy for the over-reaction to 9/11. Everyone saw those planes fly into the twin towers. "Something drastic had to be done!", the pundits declared... and here we are. CNN got some ad revenue, and you have to let a rent-a-cop grope your balls to get on a plane. We defeated the terrorists for sure!

CapitalistCartr• 16 years ago

To get the bomb on the plane, he had to have a bomb that was ineffective.

Robin_Message• 16 years ago

A bomb too small to cause harm and no way to detonate it properly. It worked.

rbanffy3• 16 years ago

The system should not be designed to prevent bombs in planes. This is focusing on the method you will use instead of the result you want.

The idea is to prevent planes from being hijacked or destroyed and passengers and crew to be harmed.

Besides, military planes routinely carry bombs and hardly experience any problem with them

And, to top that (as someone else said before) the only reason he was able to get into the plane was that his bomb was not a functional one - it would be very difficult to take down the plane with it.

gills• 16 years ago

Of course the system worked. Chertoff's buddies have sold a shitload of body scanners the past year, haven't they?

jdp232• 16 years ago

beautifully written ... brings tears to my eyes.

"We can reopen the Washington Monument when we've defeated our fears, when we've come to accept that placing safety above all other virtues cedes too much power to government and that liberty is worth the risks, and that the price of freedom is accepting the possibility of crime."

CodeMage• 16 years ago

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

--Benjamin Franklin

ebtalley• 16 years ago

That was a well written op-ed

rbanffy3• 16 years ago

Indeed. And I am not even American.

Sometime ago we turned from a species of brave explorers into one of coward couch potatoes.

When we finally give them our world, I hope the cockroaches have better luck.

jameskilton2• 16 years ago

Don't forget the most recent success of our information agencies, the printer bomb that was intercepted and defused. That was a big success to our current security systems.

What does the TSA do though? Ban printer cartridges on planes. WTF?! I thought this was a success? Now it's being treated like a failure?

I'm waiting for the first congressman to openly call out the TSA as a terrorist organization. He or she will get my vote for the rest of my life.

Great article Mr Schneier, couldn't have said it any better.

stretchwithme3• 16 years ago

If you stop flying as a result of this nonsense, then the TSA really will have won.

jdp232• 16 years ago

To the contrary. If we stop flying until the TSA changes their policies, it will encourage the airlines and the rest of the travel industry to put pressure on the TSA and the government.

SpikeGronim• 16 years ago

"That was a big success to our current security systems."

No, it wasn't. Saudi intelligence provided the tracking numbers for the parcel bombs[1]. All the billions of dollars that we've spent on airport security did absolutely nothing. As Schneier as argued before, if you secure the one route the attack just comes from another route.

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/world/middleeast/06terror....

jameskilton2• 16 years ago

Sorry, I said that wrong. I didn't mean a success for airport security but for the intelligence agencies who aren't infringing on basic freedoms and privacy of the general public (who in this case has good enough diplomatic ties with other intel agencies around the world to have this information passed to us).

davidst• 16 years ago

Sometimes our fears can get the best of us. This is one of those times.

cschmidt• 16 years ago

Wouldn't it be great if Bruce Schneier was in charge of the TSA? (not that he'd probably want/enjoy the job). Then, I'd feel a lot better about things.

rbanffy3• 16 years ago

> not that he'd probably want/enjoy the job

Sometimes you do the job you want to do. On some other times, you do what needs to be done.

But that's a ridiculous issue, really. Bruce will never be offered the TSA.

kmort• 16 years ago

"I don't want it because it's too narrow. I think the right thing for the government to do is to give the TSA a lot less money. I'd rather they defend against the broad threat of terrorism than focus on the narrow threat of airplane terrorism, and I'd rather they defend against the myriad of threats that face our society than focus on the singular threat of terrorism. But the head of the TSA can't have those opinions; he has to take the money he's given and perform the specific function he's assigned to perform. Not very much fun, really."

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/11/schneier_for_t...

TheSOB88• 16 years ago

Totally in agreement in theory. But sadly, people in general are knee-jerk reactors who aren't really interested in abstract thought of this level. Or am I being too cynical?

stretchwithme3• 16 years ago

Someone might do something bad so no one should be allowed to do anything.

If the people that founded this country lived by this, they never would have left Europe.

spindritf• 16 years ago

> If the people that founded this country

People who founded the US risked their necks and property fighting the most powerful empire on Earth, they probably wouldn't be very impressed by those few terrorist here and there.

RyanMcGreal2• 16 years ago

The people who founded the USA were regarded as terrorists by the British Empire from which they were fighting to secede. How times have changed.

sogrady2• 16 years ago

This is not correct. The fundamental - only, in many cases - goal of a terrorist is to inspire terror. The founders of the United States did not leverage terror in any capacity, rather they waged a conventional war to achieve their aims.

TomOfTTB4• 16 years ago

I don’t find this kind of thing helpful.

The question on things like the TSA policies is one of degree and not absolutes. So his claim that we should “conquer our fears because they are the real problem” doesn’t hold a lot of weight with me. Fearing a terrorist attack is perfectly rational the question is how much liberty we’re willing to give up to prevent such attacks.

So painting this as a “living in fear” vs “not living in fear” question doesn’t really address the problem.

Beyond that there’s the issue of disagreeing respectfully. Though he couches his point in flowery language the purpose of this type of article is to demonize the people who disagree with him. “They are the fear mongers and I am the rational one” is the point he’s making. He’s just making it in a way that sounds nice. That type of statement doesn’t lead to productive discussion and it certainly doesn't do anything to convince people who disagree with him (people who I assume are the intended audience here)

arohner• 16 years ago

> Fearing a terrorist attack is perfectly rational the question is how much liberty we’re willing to give up to prevent such attacks.

How much liberty are you willing to give up to prevent automobile accidents? children drowning in swimming pools?

Both of these kill far more people every year than terrorist attacks against americans. Why is it ok for thousands of people to die every year from drunk drivers, yet I have to take off my shoes at the airport?

Schneier's point has consistently been to fight terrorism effectively. Spend our money and resources in areas that actually reduce terrorism and deaths, rather than areas that appear effective, yet are ultimately worthless (taking off shoes, 3oz liquid restriction, TSA circling things on your boarding pass)

TomOfTTB4• 16 years ago

> How much liberty are you willing to give up to prevent automobile accidents? children drowning in swimming pools?

I'm willing to give up the liberty to not wear a seat belt and to not go as fast as I want to prevent the majority of accidents. I'm willing to give up the liberty to not put a fence around my pool to prevent most children from drowning. But I'm not willing to let the Government take my car entirely or say I just can't own a pool. So again, as I said in my original point, it's a question of degree not of absolutes.

As far as your last paragraph that's you projecting. No where in his piece does he talk about methods that are and are not effective. The word effective isn't in the piece one single time.

mtviewdave• 16 years ago

The point Schneier is making is not that we shouldn't have any fear, or ignore threats. Rather, that living in a free society means that sometimes we choose to live with fear, because trying to stamp it out would force us to give up too much "essential liberty". That's what it means to "conquer" fear: to control it, rather than letting it control you.

"...the question is how much liberty we’re willing to give up to prevent such attacks."

Indeed, that's exactly right. Or, to phrase it another way: how much fear are we willing to endure to preserve our liberties? That question is politically out-of-bounds, because the idea that we should respond to fear with courage, rather than ever-increasing security measures, is not acceptable to politicians (either Democrats or Republicans), the Washington press corps, etc.

TomOfTTB4• 16 years ago

You're speaking in platitudes. You say...

"That's what it means to "conquer" fear: to control it, rather than letting it control you."

Well I'm sorry but that's silly in practical application. Fear does control us. I don't cross the street when the red hand is up because I fear getting hit by a car. That's not irrational.

It would be irrational if I NEVER crossed a street for the same reason. So again this reinforces my original point which is these things are a question of degree and arguing "against fear" is pointless and counterproductive.

jodrellblank• 16 years ago

I want him to write more about interesting security and less about America's reaction to 9/11. We non-politicians and non-Americans get it already; the response is disproportionate, knee-jerk and terrified (terror-ified?). But that's been the case for a long time now.

chrischen2• 16 years ago

Could it be that sone people sacrifice a little of their liberty for the safety of... others?

NoSalt• 16 years ago

http://i.imgur.com/UBA0F.png

BenoitEssiambre• 16 years ago

Someone should really start an "Americans Are not Chickens, Wimps and Wusses" campaign. Proclaiming loudly that Americans are not going to be manipulated into losing their freedom by politicians and fear of terror.

Close the Washington Monument

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