Here’s a Guardian article from Cory Doctorow I missed a few months back on “security” superstition and actual security. It’s bang-on and captures how disconnected authorities have become with our safety.
The superstitions that grip airport checkpoints and banks are themselves a threat to security, because the security that does not admit of examination and discussion is no security at all.
If terrorists are a danger to London, then the only way to be safe is to talk about real threats and real countermeasures, to question the security around us and shut down the systems that don’t work.
If you’re worried about money-laundering, your bank should have real anti-laundering systems in place. If you’re worried about bombings, you need a security system that works even when the locations of the CCTV cameras are public. If you’re worried about identity theft, then the government had better have a bloody good plan for “revoking” your fingerprints and retinas should a bad guy figure out how to copy them.
If you want your plane to be safe in the sky, you’d better know what new security you gain by removing your shoes and shedding your liquids while still taking to the sky with your highly explosive laptop battery and a huge bottle of duty free whiskey.
Even further, the absurdity of shoe removal and lotion disposal as an anti-terrorism measure continues to distract from real measures to improve public safety. And while we pour money into anti-terror and state-terror measures, policy spaces of genuine danger like public health and climate security remain negligently underfunded through our entire hemisphere.
Time to fight security superstition - Cory Doctorow
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