"Security Theatre"

The Unfriendly Skies

Ever since Sept. 11, we’ve spent billions of dollars on securing airplanes, sifting through the belongings of 2 million people per day and curtailing Americans’ civil liberties in the name of freedom. But do all of the extra checkpoints, pat-downs and searches make us any safer?

Security experts such as Bruce Schneier don’t think so. Schneier is chief technology officer for BT Counterpane, a network security company, and the author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly about Security in an Uncertain World. He applauds measures such as reinforcing and locking cockpit doors, using air marshals and instructing passengers to fight back, making it impossible for planes to be used as weapons ever again. But he calls most of the other restrictions "security theater," because, he says, they make us feel safer even though they don’t actually do much good.

Ya think??

The State can’t gurantee our security any more than monkeys will fly out of Dick Cheney’s butt. The key is to keep up all appearances that they are "doing something", while priming people to become used to the constant infringement on their rights.