The Transportation
Security Administration [TSA], designated cops in schools [aka School Resource
Officers or SROs], gun-free zones, random bag checks on subways, and other
like-minded safety initiatives have been called security theater by more than a
few wise minds.
Computer security
maven Bruce Schneier is credited with coining the term security theater. Mr.
Schneier is author of the prescient and illuminating book Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.
He offers that the
TSA does little to nothing to “keep us safe” and this large outlay of
expenditure and labor is there to act as nothing more than a pacifier or Linus’
security blanket for a cowed populace.
Mr. Schneir is not
alone in this assessment, Ross Anderson, is a Professor of security
engineering, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. His research
bailiwick is that of the economics and psychology of information security.
Professor Anderson
is equally as scathing in the review and record of any of the mentioned
displays of security theater and their purported benefits. [His book Security Engineering is a must-read in
the industry.]
Security Theater
is designed [well-intentioned or not] to convey safety/security benefits that
dissolve upon close examination.
By this point we
are all well aware of the cost-to-benefit absurdity of the TSA’s abysmal
record; the TSA’s own internal assessments are less than admirable.
School Resource
Officers also come up short, an excellent piece on the perversity of this
policy can be found in the Reason magazine
article “Why Are Cops Putting Our Kids in
Cuffs?” by Robby Soave & Tyler Koteskey [Reason March, 2017.]
Studies of Random
Bag Check Policies on Metro Subways in several cities reveal yields of zero
arrests despite what many rightly see as infringement of rights. And gun-free
zones, well, as we painfully know those who abide by that bit of theatrical law
are the very ones we’d prefer to be armed. [At least that’s my preference.]
The purpose for
discussing security theater today is not to provide yet another reason for we
the outraged populace to shake our collective fists at our “betters” in
bureaucracies but rather to turn the accusatory lens around.
Yes, the
aforementioned theatrical productions are unwise, immensely costly [in dollars,
time, and in some cases lives] but our outrage seldom does little against our
leviathan bureaucratic systems of governance.
Since we can do
little to affect security theater on the macro scale I ask what might we be
able to do in the micro, that is at the personal level?
What habits,
behaviors, bits of theatrical security showmanship might we be indulging in in
our own lives that when we put the cold hard light of pragmatics on it dissolve
into TSA uselessness?
Here’s a brief
battery of questions to allow you to self-assess.
Do you own a
personal protection device?
If so, do you
regularly carry it?
Be that device a
firearm, a tactical folder, a Taser, hell, it could be a phaser from the
future, if it is not carried, that device is no more than a prop in your
amateur personal security theater production.
If you do carry a
security tool, have you been trained in its use?
Do you regularly
“groove” your training with weekly sessions? [We must always keep the mantra
regarding skills in mind “Use it or lose
it.”]
Is your device one
of actual practical value? This must be asked, as over the years, I have seen
many variations of doo-dads that can attach to your keyring or gravitate to the
bottom of purses that may be nothing more than teensy theatrical props.
Case in point, the
pocket kubatan. I have seen these for years and I ask you honestly how many
reports have you encountered echoing these lines?
“I was approached in a parking lot by three shady
characters, but fortunately I had my kubaton and lived to tell the tale?”
I’m not picking on
the kubaton exclusively, with a little common sense and a little candor
evaluate your own tool and ask if it is a benefit or a security prop?
Allow me to ease
potentially ruffled feathers by reversing our lens again.
Assuming you think
the TSA is an efficient and effective body protecting you from terrorist threat
would you approve of a mandate that stripped them of their firearms and instead
provided them with kubatons vs. terrorists?
Would you feel
safe in a “bad” part of town if you knew that all the cops kept their guns not
on their person but somewhere in their glove compartments or at the bottom of
their cop purses?
How about if you
knew they had never been range qualified for the weapons they carry? Or, if
they had been qualified have never bothered to train with the weapon again?
You see what I’m
saying, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If it is unwise
policy and security theater for those uphill in the hierarchy, I argue that is
all the more unwise and dangerous when we look at ourselves as we are
inevitably always the first responders in every incident in our own lives.
Let’s turn that
lens around upon ourselves once again.
Have you trained
in self-defense?
Notice I did not
say tae kwon do, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, boxing, or any other combat sport. As
formidable, fun, and worthy of merit they all may be in their own arenas, a
mere 15 minutes out of your life viewing actual assaults on YouTube will reveal
that violent reality seldom resembles a sportive construct.
So, again, have
you trained in self-defense?
If so, do you
regularly touch-up your skills?
If not, that krav
maga class from a few years back or that half-hearted touch-up of skills
occasionally is akin to the weapon seldom if ever fired.
Self-defense that
does not reflect real-world realties is akin to mime in our security theater
presentation, that is, an art form best performed by oneself for oneself as no
one really needs it. [Apologies to mimes everywhere, in truth, I find Chaplin a
genius.]
To carry on our
theatrical criticism, much lip service is paid to awareness, alertness,
mind-setting, and “eyes of a warrior” mentalities. And yet, I know many [many,
too many] folks who preach that message who conduct their lives with heads-down
and phones out—this is particularly conspicuous at airports and all large
public gatherings where one would assume that this touted “warrior alertness”
is most in need.
To give voice to
awareness and mind-setting talk is, again, security theater, the mere uttering
of lines in a play. We say the words we think that a high-speed/low-drag
seasoned Navy SEAL would utter, but if we aren’t stepping up to the words we
are simply playing a role and we may be fooling no one but ourselves.
So, again, I ask
you what’s your own bit of security theater and what can you do to take it from
the playhouse to the streets?
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