[IP] "Movie-plot threats"
Begin forwarded message:
From: Art Botterell <acb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: September 11, 2005 1:38:34 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: "Movie-plot threats"
Security expert Bruce Schneier offers a useful perspective in today's
Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
<http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/5606306.html>
The problem is that we all got caught up in "movie-plot threats,"
specific attack scenarios that capture the imagination and then the
dollars. Whether it's terrorists with box cutters or bombs in their
shoes, we fear what we can imagine. We're searching backpacks in
the subways of New York, because this year's movie plot is based on
a terrorist bombing in the London subways.
Funding security based on movie plots looks good on television, and
gets people reelected. But there are millions of possible
scenarios, and we're going to guess wrong...
I think that's right, and that it also says something about the New
Sentimentalism that's dominated American public discourse for awhile,
and especially since 9/11.
Pious and patriotic sentiments are good, but they're not sufficient.
A degree of dry-eyed objectivity is required as well. Certainly we
need to guard against letting "loyalty," "supporting the troops" and
so forth become codewords for groupthink, unquestioning conformity
and, ultimately, self-deception.
- Art
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