Friday, December 16, 2011

The Terror-Industrial Complex and Its Terroristas

It is more and more clear that "terrorism" is the "AGW" of the Right.  It's scary, it's big, and it will only take 1) scads of money, 2) losses of liberties, and 3) abject servility to the State to "fix it."

It's also horsepuckey--as is the Bush/Obozo airport "security" apparatus.

Given the breadth and complexity of threats to commercial aviation, those who criticize the TSA and other aviation security regulatory agencies for reactive policies and overly narrow focus appear to have substantial grounding. Three particularly serious charges can be levied against the TSA: it overemphasizes defending against specific attack vectors (such as hijackings or passenger-borne IEDs) at the expense of others (such as insider threats or attacks on airports); it overemphasizes securing U.S. airports while failing to acknowledge the significantly greater threat posed to flights arriving or departing from foreign airports; and it has failed to be transparent with the American people that certain threats are either extremely difficult or beyond the TSA's ability to control. Furthermore, the adoption of cumbersome aviation security measures in the wake of failed attacks entails a financial burden on both governments and the airline industry, which has not gone unnoticed by jihadist propagandists and strategists. While the U.S. government has spent some $56 billion on aviation security measures since 9/11, AQAP prominently noted that its 2010 cargo plot cost a total of $4,900.  --Schneier quoting Combating Terrorism Center

Convincing little old ladies that there is a terrorist under every bed is easy.

Strip-searching grannies?  That's where the rubber meets the road, and stupid excess Statism hits the rocks.

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