Schneier on Security

Haninah • June 16, 2006 11:22 AM

I’m not convinced by this one. It may be wishful thinking, but is it too much to hope for that he really was stopped for all the good reasons he gives (Pakistan, etc.), that while he was sitting there his documents were being run through some sort of check, and that when the check concluded that he was just an innocent journalist, he was released? That they told him the cover story because they don’t exactly want to tell every person they take in for questioning the details of how they operate (maybe even Malik didn’t know the real reason why he was told to chat this guy up for a few hours)? In that case, this would be a case of the system operating perfectly: an innocent person with legitimate flag-raisers is detained briefly, and ultimately released without having been subjected to any humiliating treatment or presumption of guilt.
I don’t want to be an inveterate optimist, but on the other hand, we do spend a lot of time on this blog assuming the worst about DHS, NSA, etc (oh, man, those NSA idiots, they don’t know s**t about networks, I bet I could program better than they could, etc.) Let’s be as suspicious as we have to, but let’s also not assume that just because someone works for the government, they’re utterly incompetent.

Haninah • June 16, 2006 12:42 PM

@ Michael
I share your sentiments, but disagree with you on this case. Your constitutional right to know what you’re suspected of doesn’t kick in, in an ordinary investigation, till your case goes to trial. It’s perfectly normal for the cops to bring someone in for questioning without disclosing to them the full details of the suspected crime they’re investigating. Of course, if you’re being questioned, you have a right to know that that is what’s going on (and to have an attorney present), but it doesn’t sound like this guy was being questioned, merely (under my scenario) being held while a background check was being run. And it’s not just the police: I’m sure the IRS, for example, has the same power. In short, detaining someone for six hours at the border without telling them what it is that’s suspicious about them, assuming that they’re not being in any way abused or threatened during that time, is a long way from a Kafkaesque trial in which a defendant is never informed of the crime of which they’re accused.
Unfortunately, we now know that our country is also running that type of Kafkaesque trial, and, even worse, detaining people indefinitely without the prospect of any sort of trial, and under abusive conditions. But we’re as bad as the worst consumers of movie plot threats if we socially engineer ourselves into seeing a case of either incompetence or competent malevolence every time we hear from a total stranger that he or she had an interaction with a law enforcement agency which is not completely explained by the facts which are available to us. Don’t we need something more than mildly odd behavior (on the part of the law-enforcement agency) to trigger our suspicion?
To put it another way: yes, I do believe in slippery slopes, but that doesn’t mean that in a country where people are being secretly detained and tortured we should be wasting our time pondering the fate of a journalist who, on returning from some rather remarkable adventures abroad, was forced to submit for six hours to mediocre sports talk with a government employee (“a Pakistani, ironically” — and why exactly is the govt employee’s ethnicity so ironic?).
Just saying.