Sams' Security Theatre

Sam is wrong about the practice of airport profiling. And despite his self critical potential, he has persisted in this position particularly.

Here are the shortcomings of his argument. Some of them are referenced directly in his blog debate.

1 - Sam's view about "Anti-profiling", is simply too hard to implement in nation-wide security networks (especially for a belief). If you have 10,000 people at TSA, it's easier to train them to do the security equivalent of flipping burgers, than to produce 10,000 reliable James Bonds. Bottom line is we need resilient networks.

2 - This being the case, Sam's claim of we only have so much time to spend, is false. Passengers have unlimited time. In implementing a diagnostically perfect, easy to follow system, we can waste as much of their time as we want. Again, we do so because of the impossibility of implementing a "perfect" system. We will go with the system that produces no leaks, every single time.

If somehow, we could hire 10,000 James Bonds to enforce security across the country, we would. But we can't. We can't even get Arabic speaking people in the CIA. It's our amount, even our capacity, for such expertise that is the bottleneck.

If our networks, our "choke-points", are to be truly secure, our procedures, readily followable procedures, must be foolproof. Given unavailable expertise, and possible leaks (say, failing to notice a 60 year old Chechnyan woman or something of the sort), profiling is not yet a viable substitute for a catch-all.

3 - Given the preceding two points, the "display of fairness" juice is also worth the squeeze. Maryam Namazie is an idiotic example of this. We have to realize how truly inflammatory a system that visibly targets Muslims will be. We just have to take the hit, and slide by their narrative until they are assimilated into our culture, and these practices play into the talking points of Islamists.

Like it or not, this is a people easily inflamed, many of whom are coming into contact with modernity for the first time in history. Since we cannot implement a perfect system of profiling, we should realize the immediate benefits of the "fair" model on this view.

Anyways, Sam is right in principle. All jihadists are Muslim. Many muslims have irrational beliefs about suicide terror. If anyone believes in the prescription of the Quran in any meaningful sense, they have been duped by con-men, and are statistically more dangerous than average etc. etc. I'm on board with all of it.

What I disagree with, especially after reading his blog debate (read it, if you haven't) is that he doesn't realize how unfeasible such a system that exploits this truth, in practice, actually is.

A nation-wide system which profiles is almost by it's very definition, an unreliable, untrained, and exploitable one.

For the record, I believe we can still use information, after our initial "foolproof" mechanism has spotted a danger, to ascertain Muslim characteristics, and if they are radicalist ones.

But we are discussing our security apparatus, not the case by case response of our specialists, who should also exercise caution to the extent that their investigative capabilities aren't foolproof.

It's really just a matter of building perfect systems, versus imperfect ones, given the resources at hand.