Assessing Terror Risks
    I'M NOT A SECURITY OFFICIAL ... I JUST PLAY ONE ON TV
              by Lawrence A. Husick, Esq.
In August 2003, an electric grid failure led to a widespread
blackout in the Northeastern US.  Within minutes of the
event, Federal officials from both the White House and the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were issuing
statements assuring the public that the power failure was
not related to a terrorist action. More than six months
later, however, investigators were still not completely sure
of the causes, and only later issued a report tracing the
blackout to a sagging power line in Ohio (and a cascading
series of failures stemming from that line.)
At the time, we posed the rhetorical question about our
government officials, "How did they know?"[1] How, within
minutes of the incident, could anyone have ruled out
terrorist action as a cause, especially in light of the
then-common knowledge that foreign computers were constantly
probing our power grid infrastructure, which was vulnerable
to cyber-attack, and that conventional and very low-tech
attacks on power grids had been widely published in both the
mainstream media and in specialty outlets such as Paladin
Press?
Fast forward to Christmas Day, 2009. Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab's attempt at bombing Northwest Flight 253
failed.  Whether, as many have speculated, it was due to
lack of training, or as my colleagues Stephen Gale and Greg
Montanaro have suggested, it was intentional misinformation,
DHS sprang into action, as Secretary Janet Napolitano
announced on December 27, 2009, "Now once this incident
occurred, everything went according to clockwork."  Again,
it seems, we have been jolted from our slumber by a "wake up
call."[2] Once again, we predict, the US will roll over, hit
the snooze button, and return to business as usual.
Secretary Napolitano clearly had a very difficult job to do.
Faced with the need to reassure a nervous traveling public
during one of the busiest holiday periods of the year, with
hundreds of political opponents in the Congress, media and
blogosphere drooling at the chance to attack, and with an
unwillingness to divulge intelligence information, sources
or methods to al Qaeda, she had her work cut out for her.
But what work is that, exactly? What should be the role of
the Secretary of Homeland Security, and of the government in
general? Is our confusion and the resulting dissatisfaction
in the aftermath of Abdulmutallab's attack on Flight 253
merely a result of our continuing failure to clearly address
the nature of terrorism and to clearly define our responses
to it?
According to the DHS web site, the, "Department of Homeland
Security's overriding and urgent mission is to lead the
unified national effort to secure the country and preserve
our freedoms."[3] Even so, that same site intones that the
"Department _ will continue striving to protect our homeland
while ensuring the strength of our economy."  Just how much
of DHS' activity is directed to security, and how much to
the economy is unclear. What is clear is that this dual
mission leads to erosion of effectiveness in both aspects,
leaving the US both less safe and less well-off.
Having recently traveled from Philadelphia to Tampa by air,
I was subjected to a 45 minute security line video barrage,
presented on large flat-screen televisions by earnest actors
dressed in TSA blues, that assured me that removing my
shoes, carrying 3 oz. bottles in a clear one-quart bag, and
not commenting in any way on the process was necessary to my
safety.  Never mind that more travelers will be killed and
injured on their way to and from the airport, or that many
more will suffer from food-borne and air-borne pathogens
during travel - those far-greater risks are not the concern
of DHS.  As many have pointed out, our ability to properly
gauge risk is flawed, and as a result, we behave in quite
irrational ways.
In 2010, the US will spend $55,115,227,000 on DHS alone. The
Budget-in-Brief document is 162 pages long.[4] The
Transportation Security Administration employs 52,000,
screens over 625 million air passengers per year, and has
reduced the average airport screening wait time to less than
20 minutes. Because of security concerns, passengers are now
advised to arrive at least two hours early for domestic
flights.  (Computed at the Federal minimum wage, the cost to
the economy of these security-induced delays now exceeds $7
billion per year.) Recall the words of Osama bin Laden in
November 2002, "This economic hemorrhaging continues until
today, but requires more blows. And the youth should try to
find the joints of the American economy and hit the enemy in
these joints, with God's permission." Regardless of the
outcome, Mr. Abdulmutallab's "failed" attack certainly
fulfills al Qaeda's goal of continuing the attack on the
joints of the economy.
What, then, are the policy implications of requiring DHS
(and the President) not only to provide security, but also
to reassure us after every incident? Why do we continue to
demand that our officials engage in "security kabuki" and
the TSA in "security theater" simply to get the public to
fly on commercial airliners? Why did the White House and the
press pillory Vice-President Biden when he expressed his
personal view that he would advise his own family not to fly
during the height of the Mexican H1N1 flu pandemic?[5]
It is time that the US step back from its irrationally
overblown fear of terrorism.  While it is certainly true
that al Qaeda and other groups, both Islamist and not, bear
us ill will and wish to attack us and our allies, we have
allowed both our politics and our policies to be distorted,
and have, unwittingly or not, helped our enemies.  We must
insist that a rational evaluation of risk and response be a
part of our policy process.  In the past, we have suggested
a "Security Impact Assessment" as one method of such
analysis.[6] This is not to suggest that we scrap everything
done in the name of homeland security since September 11,
2001. Rather, we recommend that the twin criteria of
effectiveness and efficiency be assessed in light of the
actual risks, and that only those processes that can be
justified on that basis be retained or enhanced. While some
may argue that this assessment presently determines DHS
priorities, much of the public sees it differently, and the
present assessment process is certainly far from
transparent.
As one example, we continue to remove shoes (at some, but
not all airports) based on the singular example of Richard
Reid, the "shoe bomber." Perhaps for this reason, Mr.
Abdulmutallab used his undershorts to hide his explosives.
If the editorial cartoons have it right, we will now have to
place our undergarments in a ubiquitous gray plastic bin.
The same may be true of most liquids. In the alternative, we
may spend another trillion-or-so dollars on scanners that
undress us, just like those $10 X-Ray Specs that used to be
advertized in the back of "Popular Mechanics".  While
technology may hold some of the answers to our security
concerns, the increasing use of "behavior detection
officers" by DHS seems to be potentially more effective and
efficient, based on the experience of Israel's El Al Airline
over more than thirty years.
As much as it may be useful to reassure the public that
government is "on the job," it may ultimately be better to
just do the job properly, and leave the attempt at glossy
public relations efforts to others.  After all, the track
record shows that our officials are not particularly
effective when they attempt to respond to every threat in
the role of Reassurer-in-Chief.
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Notes
[1] http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20030818.homeland.galehusick.blackout.html
[2] As of January 12, 2010, the search "flight 253" "wake up
call" yields over 22,000 articles on Google!
[3] http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/strategicplan/ retrieved 12-JAN-10.
[4] http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/budget_bib_fy2010.pdf
retrieved 12-JAN-10.
[5] "I would tell members of my family - and I have - I
wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that
it's going to Mexico - it's that you're in a confined
aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way
through the aircraft." - Vice President Joe Biden, NBC Today
Show, April 30, 2009.
[6] http://www.fpri.org/fpriwire/1101.200302.galehusick.madtomud.html retrieved 12-Jan-10.
--
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."  --
Albert Einstein !!!
