Having a Security Debate? Never mind about security pro’s…
The NYTimes, normally a well informed and serious newspaper, has had a “debate” about airline and airport security. And as usual when these things are “debated”, the real security experts, the ones who have certifications, are ASIS members (or both) and have actually worked in real, physical security, are excluded from the proceedings.
Instead, the NYTimes chose to include Bruce Schneier, a computer security geek (and not even a member of ASIS – we checked), an author (David Ropeik) and a professor of management science (whatever that is) from MIT (Arnold Barnett). There were two other participants, namely one Israeli Airport Security consultant (some of you may know that Israel’s take on airport security is non-transferrable to other countries) and the only qualified participant; a British aviation security consultant named Philip Baum.
Now, those who read this site from time to time might have noticed that Bruce Schneier (a.k.a. “BS”) isn’t held in high regard around here. BS is a “security technologist” working for BT, sitting behind a desk and working mostly on posting links and quoting other people on his blog (yep, the site is so bad that it only gets a link in the “g”). BS has published a couple of books – most of them technical works about cryptology, a field where he actually has some clout, and where he should have stayed. Instead, he has managed (by means that just escape us) to establish himself as some sort of security guru, regardless of the fact that he has never, ever worked in physical security, he does not have any kind of certification in security (such as CPP, PSP or any other recognized security certification) and the only experience he has with airport, airline and aviation security comes from going through the checkpoints now and then.
What BS does best is to issue less-than-well informed opinions, and then try to discredit anyone who points out the flaws in his logic. Anyone visiting his blog will see what we mean here.
In any case, the NYTimes has managed to discredit itself this time, aiming to create debate and creating, instead, a meaningless collection of old essay quotes from people who, we are sure, are quite successful and knowledgeable in their fields, but have nothing what so ever to bring to the airport security debate worth mentioning.
The main question anyone who reads the debate should ask themselves is this; what kind of experience in the field do these participants have, where are they listed, and should they really be allowed to speak their minds in a forum as large as NYTimes? The answer as far as we are concerned is a resounding “no!”. But that’s just us…
There can be no doubt that the TSA and its use of body scanners, their methods for treating the traveling public should be revised, examined, debated and talked about by both experienced experts and laymen everywhere, but when it comes to issuing statements on the subjects, writing essays and putting issues on the agenda, a newspaper like the NYTimes should leave that to the experts with relevant experience, training and certifications.
Those interested in airport security should take a look at our pages here, here, here and here. There’s a few more, but those are the main ones, so far.
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so i am wondering i am a student a paranoid of bad things from past reasons my school will start checking our shoes bags pat us down not sure about scanners its obviously not a airport so they cant pat us down in certain areas but i would like to be comfortable any places i could hide a weapon close to me like bra wont work because bulge out but i would like comfort and not to be caught tooo any suggestions? Please i would really aprreciate it .
Hi Kate – thanks for subscribing to our newsletter, by the way.
You know, hiding a weapon is in most cases a very bad idea which will get you into trouble more often than not.
With that in mind, we do understand that there might be valid reasons why people would want to do this, and that’s a part of the reasoning behind this whole site.
Getting “unwanted” (not necessarily illegal) items past a checkpoint is not an easy feat, and if you do fail, then that is bound to get you into trouble.
We’d like to advice you to look over the articles on how to get illegal items into an airport, and perhaps you could consider the shoe knife? Even if someone searches the inside of your shoes, they’re hardly likely to find the updated version, if made with care.
“Deep concealment” is another method that has been proven effective in less-than-thorough pat-down situations. Send us an email if you want to learn about that.
-SB-