Ut Humiliter Opinor

Michael Chertoff has an article today called Securing Our Subways. Reading it, however, makes it painfully clear that we can’t. His three items to improve security are: intercept sleeper cells, not to focus solely on subways and buses, and encourage research that will identify potential WMDs.

All of these are good ideas, but they don’t really help much in securing mass transit - they involve finding the terrorists before they strike.

If you need any further proof that it is next to impossible, then look at Israel. It’s one of the most secure countries, and its airline security is top-notch. However, bus bombings are routine there.

So, let’s do away with the fiction that we can somehow make our mass transit safe with random searches of bags and a slightly increased police presence. It’s a feel-good measure at best, and a diversion from the real investigations at worst.

Update 7/30: Ogre comments in a related post that indicates 60% of people think random searches help fight terrorism and that 49% of Americans think racial profiling should not be used to stop terrorists. (Hat tip: Beltway Traffic Jam.)

It’s absolutely assanine NOT to use profiling. If you local police chief took this view on crime-fighting, when a woman reported that she’d been raped by a 6′6″ Asian male, they’d have to arrest and question 75-year old ladies and 6-year old kids! I think America has indeed changed. If this poll accurately reflects the attitudes of Americans today, we are no longer the country that was formed in 1776, and we have no hope of ever being that great country again. This country was founded on individual liberty — once that’s removed, this country is not a representative republic.

Profiling is just statistical sampling by another name. If you’re going to spened the time and money to search, you have to stop the 75-year old lady once in a while (about 1 out of 100 searches), but the vast majority of searches (approximately 2/3rds of the time) should be of people who fit the normal methods used by terrorists. Yes, it stinks, but that’s how it should be done.

(Here’s a good graphic of the normal curve and associated percentages.)

My wife took the kids to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday. All enjoyed it but came away with the same reaction: why remake it? Now, I expected that reaction from my wife, but when the kids shrug at a remake, you have to wonder what the point was.

(The point was that it got them in the seats, naturally, which I suppose they did.)