Excerptcize

The other day I was calling myself naive for thinking that perhaps the unsuccessful attempt to bring down a trans-Atlantic flight on Christmas day would not be overblown. Boy was I wrong. It did seem to me that the Canadian response was somewhat more measured as new security was only put into place for flights to the US. It may however be time to break out the ‘naive’ label again. Listening to the CBC News:World Report Podcast on my way into work this morning, I was disappointed to hear that Transportation Minister John Baird is set to make an announcement later on this afternoon about new security measures that will be put into place at Canadian airports. When I switched over to my radio, the top of the hour newscast featured a similar report.

One of the DJ’s made two observations that are relevant here; with all the billions of dollars spent on airport security since 9/11, this attempted attack was (at least partially) foiled by passengers. She also noted that we don’t employ such extreme security measures in other modes of mass transportation, citing the relative lack of security when taking a ferry between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. To my ear it sounded as if the announcer was speaking from a place of fear and wishing for more security. This however seems backwards to me and her observations illustrated that quite well. We don’t have extreme security measures except for air travel as human irrationalities trump clearer thinking when flight is involved. The first point leads me to the conclusion that no matter how much is spent on security it is impossible to prevent all highly motivated individuals from attempting to use airplanes as a way to sew terror. None of this is to say that we shouldn’t be vigilant in regards to air travel and not have any security, merely that a cost/benefit analysis of our security spending is needed and in my non-expert opinion we are already well past the point of diminishing returns on dollars spent.

Stay tuned to the CBC or your Canadian news outlet of choice for more information on what is actually going to change.

Update : By my reading of this news report it appears that the new security measures entail installing the ‘full body scanners’ that we have been hearing about lately at Canada’s major airports to randomly screen passengers, but only those travelling to the US. I don’t have a problem with my privacy being violated by them seeing me ‘naked’; the privacy commissioner’s office is placated on that front, so I am too. I do think that they are a waste of resources, but the US masters have mandated them from on high, so I don’t really what options we have. As we get more extreme with screening, the frequency with which we see false positives like this will go up. I don’t even want to think how much money in lost productivity this screw up over honey cost.

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