I’m sure many of my generation have vivid memories of the morning of September 11, 2001. Working as an emergency manager on the west coast I received a call at my home from the Sheriff I needed to come open our EOC. I didn’t have the TV on. Turning on the news I received a gut punch like many.
A lot of water can pass under the bridge in seventeen years. I have to ask these questions of my readers.
- Are we better prepared post September 11, 2001?”
- Are we safer both here in the United States, and since we declared a global war on terrorism, is the global community safer?
The absence of a repeat attack does not necessarily mean we as a nation are better prepared, I don’t see any argument that airline passengers are more than willing to step up and solve mid-air disturbances. My opinion is that the passengers are the first and last line of defense when it comes to mitigating a repeat. Having TSA agents covertly tailing Americans in airports, doesn’t give me warm fuzzies it’s worth the effort. On value for the money spent, I think normal flyers are a far better deal than the monstrous bureaucracy of DHS and TSA.
When I consider the issue of our global neighbors being safer, it doesn’t feel safer to me at all if you’re an average citizen. If I look at the impact the Patriot Act, DHS, TSA and other initiatives that are in place as a result of the attack I don’t see a positive collateral benefit to the global community and in some cases it has gotten worse for them.
I am curious for my readers to comment on what has been the cost in money, inconvenience, or other tangible evidence of our being safer here in the United States to you? I know if you fly you near as much as I do, you see the impact regularly, but do you feel safer because of it? What would be better alternatives or have we gone too far and this is the new baseline?
Let’s not forget that the men and women of the US Military who have, and continue to pay a dear price for our safety. It is quite likely that readers of this will either have relatives in the service as I do or know people who are working every day to keep us safe. This is real cost of our safety here at home. Numerous nations have assisted in this effort, and they too have soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for helping to keep us safe.
If we are indeed safer due to the absence of another attack, lets hear some examples of what the measures taken since the attacks of September 11, 2001 have had on you.
I think one of the least successful post 9/11 efforts has been empowering flight attendants to make decisions about passengers. Every week we read about a new outrage against common sense. When I was working on these issues right after 9/11 while at USDOT, I warned the FAA security personnel that empowering flight attendants would create such problems. They were very angry at me for impugning the wisdom of flight attendants. Other errors include bad profiling (e.g. old women, babies, Sikhs with turbans) instead of domestic terrorist profiling (young white Christian ex-military men with short hair who pal around with rightwing groups). The most successful security efforts I’ve seen include layered security at airports like Nairobi, Kenya; and use of high technology such as body imaging, explosives sniffing, and radiological monitoring. Big opportunities which continue to be lost include scanning of containers, lack of security on passenger trains, and lack of gun and ammunition control in the US. Poor cyber-security is the big unknown, where it appears that the US government has permitted, and continues to permit, foreign intervention in US democratic processes and that constitute an existential threat. Politics aside, the Executive Branch appears not to care about such threats at the highest level. One hopes that career bureaucrats and military experts are defending the country, even in the absence of an example at the top. In terms of natural disasters, continuing to permit building in ocean rise, flood, earthquake, and tsunami zones is idiotic. In terms of recovery, there needs to be a national earthquake insurance program, analogous to the national flood insurance program.
I get the feeling you don’t think we are any safer Marc, in spite of everything we’ve done and all the dollars spent. Lack of a cohesive overall mission or goal is an issue.