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The false security of security
2005.07.15 — Government | Terrorism | by Derek Jensen
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Anti-terrorism security outside the Prudential Financial building in Newark last year. In six months, the dude never shot anybody, not even a cameraman. [Tysto exclusive] |
Developments in London underscore the basic Big Lie of anti-terrorism efforts in the developed world: there's nothing we can do. There are already calls for "better security" for bus and rail transport in the US and UK. But have you ever heard of a bomb-sniffing dog actually sniffing out a bomb? Anywhere outside of a war zone? Ever?
A Google search for "bomb-sniffing dog" turned up many proud announcements of various US police departments acquiring the dogs and no news stories about the dogs finding any bombs.
London has more police cameras than any other city, but they're mainly useful for detecting drug dealers and football hooligans. After all, what good is a picture of a suicide bomber? Terrorists are careful and secretive and have no special requirements in a target other than a crowd of people.
It is the simplest thing in the world to carry a time bomb on board a train or bus... or practically anywhere else. |
It is the simplest thing in the world to carry a time bomb on board a train or bus... or into a baseball park or shopping mall or county fair or practically anywhere else. It requires virtually no planning beyond building the bomb itself. There's no way to stop it short of establishing a full-scale X-ray-and-metal-detector system in every commercial building. And even that won't stop Hamas-style market bombings or the London bus bomb.
The dirty little secret of anti-terrorism security is that it doesn't work. Outside war zones, no terrorist is ever caught in the act of planting a bomb or otherwise carrying off a terror attack. It doesn't happen. No sub-machine-gun-wielding cop ever gunned down a terrorist in the act of driving a car bomb to a target in the US.
The dirty little secret of anti-terrorism security is that it doesn't work. |
Even the Los Angeles millennium bomb plot was foiled by ordinary police work by customs officials, not by concrete barriers, machine guns, X-ray machines, or bomb-sniffing dogs.
You can call Israel the exception, but I call Israel a war zone. They suffer terrorist attacks all the time; they're bound to stop a few here and there. And Israeli defense forces occasionally stop suicide bombers only because it is now a practice of the bombers to detonate their explosives near soldiers.
It is the simplest thing in the world to carry a time bomb on board a train or bus... or practically anywhere else. |
Our ridiculous color-coded terror alert system doesn't help. (Note to Justice Department: it alerts the terrorists too.) It and other public terrorism pacifiers have never resulted in a legitimate arrest and conviction for terrorism. The handful of legit US convictions for terrorism since 2001 have all been police investigations. The unfortunate truth is that our money is better spent infiltrating terrorist circles and intercepting their communications, not subjecting the general population to search and surveillance and harassing tourists for taking pictures.
Since 2001, only one terrorist has ever been caught in the act: Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," stopped before he could detonate his shoe bomb by the vigilance and anti-terrorist tactics of... a flight attendant.
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