More on Homeland "Security"

He's the acknowledged expert in security, so the quote is worth pondering.

Bruce Schneier, an internationally recognized security technologist, said whole-body imaging technology "works pretty well," privacy rights aside. But he thinks the financial investment was a mistake. In a post-9/11 world, he said, he knows his position isn't "politically tenable," but he believes money would be better spent on intelligence-gathering and investigations.

"It's stupid to spend money so terrorists can change plans," he said by phone from Poland, where he was speaking at a conference. If terrorists are swayed from going through airports, they'll just target other locations, such as a hotel in Mumbai, India, he said.

"We'd be much better off going after bad guys ... and back to pre-9/11 levels of airport security," he said. "There's a huge 'cover your ass' factor in politics, but unfortunately, it doesn't make us safer."

IOW, spend the damn money on CIA/NSA (with the emphasis on humint for a change).

This is common sense. The way to prevent terrorism is to eliminate terrorists, not to inspect Granny Smith. The terrorist will simply take a job at an airport and blow up the plane on the friggin' apron if that's what he wants to do.

I repeat: Homeland Security was one of GWBush's most egregious errors, just as the EPA was one of Nixon's most awful stupids.