Security expert: "We're one terrorist attack away from a police state,"

[Heidi]

Everything We Know About Security Is Wrong

So says counterterrorism contrarian Bruce Schneier.
And the Transportation Security Administration is listening.
In late July, Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley announced a change in his agency's air travel screening policy: Effective August 4, cigarette lighters would no longer be banned from airplanes.

Explaining the measure in an interview with the New York Times, Hawley acknowledged that confiscating lighters at security checkpoints—the TSA's policy for the last two years in the wake of a failed shoe-bombing attempt—had been a waste of resources. Terrorists, he noted, might just as well ignite bombs on airplanes using small batteries (or, as he didn't note, matches).

"Taking lighters away is security theater," Hawley told the Times. "It trivializes the security process."

Among those struck by Hawley's about-face was Bruce Schneier, a Minneapolis man alternately called a "security guru" (The Economist), "the smartest guy in the room on security" (the ACLU), and "unquestionably the world's foremost security technologist" (Connections). Schneier, who wears the graying beard and thinning ponytail of a computer geek chieftain, didn't earn such accolades by mincing words.

"There have been exactly two things since 9/11 that have made air travel safer," Schneier said recently over spring rolls at a favorite Vietnamese restaurant on Nicollet Avenue. "Reinforcing the cockpit door and telling people to fight back in the event of an attack." After a brief pause, half-devoured roll in hand, he reconsidered. "Well, maybe three," he said. "I'm on the fence about sky marshals."

<snip>

But he's most passionate about the government's response to terrorism since September 11, which he says has been both out of proportion to the threat and overly governed by our collective fears. His pho placed in front of him, Schneier picked up his spoon and jabbed the air with it. "We're one terrorist attack away from a police state," he said.

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[Warren Stupidity]

1. Well he's right of course, but that attack is in the rear view mirror. nt.

[AX10]

2. K & R!

[Gman]

3. Which will surely come at some point not long after Labor Day

and no later than January 31. The right wing revolution of 2000 is critically near an end if something is not done immediately to perpetuate it. I believe the right wing is that desperate right now. They stole a presidential election in 2000 and again in 2004. They are, by definition, capable of literally anything you can imagine.

[acmavm]

4. Yep. That attack and the ensuing martial law are necessary to protect

the criminal actions of those that have been stealing this country blind for the last 7 years. They cannot (and will not) allow themselves to be shuffled off to the trash bin of history. They have too much to hide, too much to lose.

[PearliePoo2]

6. Do you think

the right wingers will instigate an attack?
Will the public rally round the leader (as they did on 9/11) or feel betrayed that the Re-thugs failed to protect us as they are boasting.
Considering Chimp still says we are fighting them there so they don't blah blah blah....won't that prove that little theory a lie?

[glitch]

9. People don't think when they are consumed by fear - they feel and that is what bushco is counting on

Pure fear reaction -> demand for protection = game set match over. No analysis, no debate, police state.

[Gman]

20. LIHOP or MIHOP

either one, but it will happen.

[mwb970]

22. I don't understand how another attack would help the Republicans.

Aren't they supposedly "protecting" us? Wouldn't another attack be their fault, not Clinton's, at this point? Wouldn't the country blame the people in charge for failing to "protect" us? Why would America rally around The Idiot just because he allowed a second attack on his watch?

I don't get it.

[Joanne98]

5. That was the plan all along!

[pingzing58]

7. There's a side of me that likes conspiracies.

[scarletwoman]

8. Great article! Thanks very much for posting it -- k & r (nt)

[aquart]

10. "Security theatre" is a great meme. Use it often.

Because that's exactly what all this terror hysteria is.

[Bitwit1234]

11. Why is it, a lot of other countries handle the attacks of terrorist

a hell of a lot better than this country does. All the bush administration does is take away another right and freedom of the American people. Instead of tightening the borders, checking supplies coming in thru the ports and that sort of thing. I think they enjoy the threat it just gives them more authority over the citizens of this country.

Since when did we become a country of wimps, expecting a wimp of the first kind both the president and vice president who ran and hid instead of defending their country when they were needed. It doesn't make sense.

[mwb970]

23. America overreacts to *everything*.

From 9/11 to American Idol, we always overdo it. Motto: "Everything to excess."

[Blackhatjack]

12. Makes you wonder what Admin Officials know is in store for us...

We need people to quit cringing in fear of a terrorist attack. Are we going to put our lives on hold while we wait for the next one? I don't think so.

I fear the plans the Administration has ready to implement in the event of another terrorist attack in America because those changes to our civil liberties and our constitutional form of government would likely be with us longer than the memory of the actual attack.

[janx]

13. Ah, Bruce Schneier!

It's always a pleasure to read something he has written or to read about what he's up to.

[Heidi]

14. I'm embarrassed to say I'd never heard of him before I read and

posted the article, but I'm now a huge fan.

P.S. I'm not a "dog person," but the dog in your sig is gorgeous.

[bananas]

19. He has a mailing list and a blog

http://www.schneier.com /

[Laughing Mirror]

15. "Everyone sees what the TSA's doing is a joke"

One day we'll be looking back at old clips of us today going through the ridiculous "security" charade at airports and we'll be laughing the way we laugh now at old newsreels of school children ducking under school desks to protect them from the atomic commie boogeyman. And those regular emergency drills when the siren went off and we kids had to march downstairs to the fall-out shelter. Everybody wanted a fallout shelter. They were the big thing.

Ha ha ha.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. Is Ted Nugent a terrorist provocateur? 'Cuz it sure does feel like we're

already under attack...from right-wing Republican extremists.

[Berry Cool]

17. Good article, but got a fact wrong on him

He graduated from the University of Rochester, which is a private school. There is no state university (SUNY) in Rochester.

Ed: Unless you count Empire State College, but since it's not a "campus," who would?

[shance]

18. That should be up to Americans, should it not? We are a Democracy are we not?

If we decide to believe this propaganda and disinformation because that is what this is, then we will continue to allow them to destroy our country.

[Heidi]

21. Kick for the weekday DUers!