From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sun Jul 28 2002 - 11:21:02 MDT
On Sunday, July 28, 2002, at 01:20 am, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> To get even further off-subject, surely we can think of a lot less
> intrusive but effective methods of assuring as good or better level of
> security than profiling or having one's person and luggage arbitrarily
> searched. For bombs and explosives we already have decent detectors in
> place afaik. For other things that might be carried on board it seems
> to me having an armed marshal or two on board and an ability to fly the
> plane by wire if things go amiss are quite adequate to deter most of
> the rest of would be airplane terrorists. Then granny's person and
> possessions need not be searched and no one needs to be profiled.
I think these are much better approaches because they are more direct.
Instead of trying to psychologically predict if someone is going to be a
terrorist or not, we would use more direct methods to detect and prevent
such activities. Direct activities are usually more effective in any
system than indirect predictors. This seems like the best approach to
decreasing the number of security incidents.
> To go a bit further, if enough of the citizens demanded a way to get
> reasonable safety was found that does not infringe on various rights I
> believe we would be much likely to see such methods employed instead of
> turning the US into a police state.
This seems to be the real reason behind the push for profiling. The
detection methods are so intrusive that people object to them. Thus,
they try to devise a system to apply the intrusive methods to other
people, but somehow they never want to apply it to themselves.
Everybody seems to agree that this is an imperfect system for an
imperfect world. If we had very effective screening systems that were
not intrusive, I don't think anybody would mind. Thus, it all boils
down to technological capability. (Which we all know is getting better
all the time!)
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
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