Category: “Security” and “Intelligence”

If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?

The new procedures are all security theater. What is needed is to actually use the tools we already have and to reform them. For example, the no-fly list has so many false positives that it is worthless. The majority of people on it aren’t terrorists and everyone knows it, so they don’t enforce it rigorously. (It’s also unconstitutional, since it is punishment without a trial, being able to face ones accuses and see the evidence against one. Of course the parts of the US constitution having to do with making war and civil rights are largely in abeyance, anyway, except when it comes to being able to tote around a personal machine gun.)

The kid had every possible warning flag. He’s the person they should have been strip searching, as opposed to random strip searches and pat downs which do almost nothing.

As for all the new rules, they won’t make anyone safer, but they will make air travel even more unpleasant than it already is. And given that air travel is already extraordinarily safe, far more so than driving a car or crossing the street, again, the new rules are just security theater.

Elizabeth Warren: Finally someone with a clue how to handle the financial crisis

By Ian Welsh

On April 5, 2009

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Warren’s the chief watchdog for the 700 billion TARP fund. Unfortunately, she has no real power, but it’s still nice to see a government official say not just some of the right things, but almost all of the right things. Talk of how the US is following Japan’s path is finally everywhere (myself and a few others have been talking about it for years, and started really beating the drums last year). Here’s Elizabeth:

Warren, a Harvard law professor and chair of the congressional oversight committee monitoring the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp), is also set to call for shareholders in those institutions to be “wiped out”. “It is crucial for these things to happen,” she said. “Japan tried to avoid them and just offered subsidy with little or no consequences for management or equity investors, and this is why Japan suffered a lost decade.”…

… Warren also believes there are “dangers inherent” in the approach taken by treasury secretary Tim Geithner, who she says has offered “open-ended subsidies” to some of the world’s biggest financial institutions without adequately weighing potential pitfalls. “We want to ensure that the treasury gives the public an alternative approach,” she said, adding that she was worried that banks would not recover while they were being fed subsidies. “When are they going to say, enough?” she said.

She also calls for the resignation of the CEOs of the worst firms.

One thing I’m tired of hearing though is the phrase “lost decade”. Japan didn’t just lose a decade, it has never really recovered. The good times have never come back.

I also think that bondholders need to take a haircut as well, not just shareholders, though they may not need to be wiped out in all cases. However, if the value of a company if it was liquidated is less than zero, then yes, non-secured bondholders (those whose bonds aren’t attached to specific assets with value) should be wiped out.

Homeland “Security” Costs $50 Billion… for what?

By Ian Welsh

On March 24, 2009

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Top 10 Countries by Military Spending 2007

Joshua D Foster explains how fear and statistical illiteracy inflate America’s security budgets in Psychology Today:

Consider, for example, that the 2009 budget for homeland security (the folks that protect us from terrorists) will likely be about $50 billion. Don’t get us wrong, we like the fact that people are trying to prevent terrorism, but even at its absolute worst, terrorists killed about 3,000 Americans in a single year. And less than 100 Americans are killed by terrorists in most years. By contrast, the budget for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (the folks who protect us on the road) is about $1 billion, even though more than 40,000 people will die this year on the nation’s roads. In terms of dollars spent per fatality, we fund terrorism prevention at about $17,000,000/fatality (i.e., $50 billion/3,000 fatalities) and accident prevention at about $25,000/fatality (i.e., $1 billion/40,000 fatalities).

People fear things that are highly unlikely to kill them, such as flying on an airplane, much more than things that are much more likely to, such as crossing the street or driving a car. As a result they make irrational decisions about how to spend both time and effort. This is why basic statistics should be taught in every school and no one should be allowed to graduate before they pass.

Disproportionate fear is particularly the case when it comes to security and military spending in the US. The US spends almost half the world’s military spending and too many Americans seem to think that it needs to spend more, not less. Heck, the US intelligence budget alone is over $43 billion while China spends $70 billion on its entire military.

Delusional is too kind a word for it, and I’m not sure insane even covers it, so lets go for understatement and call it “counterproductive” and “a waste of good money”. Slash the military budget in half and the US will still spend more money on its military than any possible combination of attackers. Do the same to homeland “security” spending and the intelligence services, and you’d have all the money you need for refitting the country for energy independence, which would make the country far more secure than lots of jet fighters meant to fight the USSR and airport screeners with rubber gloves.

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: “Security” and “Intelligence”

Security Theater

Elizabeth Warren: Finally someone with a clue how to handle the financial crisis

Homeland “Security” Costs $50 Billion… for what?