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Security, real and imaginary
July 12, 2005 | 4:19 PM ET
Earlier this week, I was pretty critical of the London security cameras, and I have a column out today over at TechCentralStation making the same point at much greater length: The vaunted network of security cameras in London didn't deter terrorists from setting off bombs. When it comes to preventing terrorism, I suggested, we'd be better off relying on voluntary cooperation from citizens than spending millions (billions?) on cameras and doughnut-eating cops sitting in front of monitors instead of pounding the pavement out in the real world.
While this led some jokers to suggest that I was overlooking a couple of key benefits of security cameras, there's a more serious question here, on top-down versus bottom-up approaches to security.
Top-down approaches, like security cameras with central monitoring, rely on a few people to keep the rest of us safe. Bottom-up approaches rely on the rest of us to keep the rest of us safe.
There's room for both, of course. But there's no question that bureaucrats seem more interested in systems that steer money and power to bureaucrats than in systems that don't. There's also little question that many of those systems -- like the intrusive yet porous security at American airports -- don't do much to actually protect us. As Anne Applebaum writes about the uselessness of airport security:
Yet this mass ceremonial sacrifice of toenail clippers on the altar of security comes at an extraordinarily high price. The annual budget of the federal Transportation Security Administration hovers around $5.5 billion -- just about the same price as the entire FBI -- a figure that doesn't include the cost of wasted time. De Rugy reckons that if
624 million passengers each spend two hours every year waiting in line, the annual loss to the economy comes to $32 billion. There has also been a price to pay in waste, since when that much money is rubbed into a problem with that kind of speed -- remember, the TSA had only 13 employees in January 2002 -- a lot of it gets misspent. In the case of the TSA, that waste includes $350,000 for a gym, $500,000 for artwork and silk plants at the agency's new operations center, and $461,000 for its first-birthday party. More to the point, the agency has spent millions, even billions, on technology that is inappropriate or outdated.
Bottom-up security, on the other hand, was the response of the passengers on Flight 93, stopping the hijackers from completing their mission. It's worth noting that the only successful response to the 9/11 attacks came from ordinary Americans with cellphones, not from big bureaucracies.
Big bureaucracies have their place, but it's a lot smaller place than they'd have us believe, and they do a worse job of occupying it than they let on. Just something to remember, as these topics come up again.
Mr. P said:I would hope most people would be more aware these days of what goes on around them, but I know better. People do need to be reminded because we tend to
drift into the complexities of our own daily lives.
An easily implemented program like Neighborhood watch only "Nation Watch" would be a great first step. Let's do it.
Remember after 911 how the president wanted to use the US Postal Service to help monitor the neighborhoods the delivery men/women worked in? They walk those neighborhoods every day and they would have easily been able to notice any funny activities... The media, ACLU, etc. labeled it the "Stasi" and had it shut down. The libs don't want security... they want something else to happen so they can blame Bush and say he didn't try anything to stop it....dilloduck said:If people could refrain from labeling it "vigilantism" it might help but that's a long shot.
