Entries Tagged "overreactions"

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Chlorine and Cholera in Iraq

Excellent blog post:

So cholera has now reached Baghdad. That’s not much of a surprise given the utter breakdown of infrastructure. But there’s a reason the cholera is picking up speed now. From the NYT:

“We are suffering from a shortage of chlorine, which is sometimes zero,” Dr. Ameer said in an interview on Al Hurra, an American-financed television network in the Middle East. “Chlorine is essential to disinfect the water.”

So why is there is a shortage? Because insurgents have laced a few bombs with chlorine and the U.S. and Iraq have responded by making it darn hard to import the stuff. From the AP:

[A World Health Organization representative in Iraq] also said some 100,000 tons of chlorine were being held up at Iraq’s border with Jordan, apparently because of fears the chemical could be used in explosives. She urged authorities to release it for use in decontaminating water supplies.

I understand why Iraq would put restrictions on dangerous chemicals. And I’m sure nobody intended for the restrictions to be so burdensome that they’d effectively cut off Iraq’s clean water supply. But that’s what looks to have happened. What makes it all the more tragic is that chlorine—for all the hype and worry—is actually a very ineffective booster for bombs. Of the roughly dozen chlorine-laced bombings in Iraq, it appears the chlorine has killed exactly nobody.

In other words, the biggest damage from chlorine bombs—as with so many terrorist attacks—has come from overreaction to it. Fear operates as a “force multiplier” for terrorists, and in this case has helped them cut off Iraq’s clean water. Pretty impressive feat for some bombs that turned out to be close to duds.

I couldn’t have said it better. In this case, the security countermeasure is worse than the threat. Same thing could be said about a lot of the terrorism countermeasures in the U.S.

Another article on the topic.

Posted on September 25, 2007 at 12:23 PM • View Comments

Woman Arrested at Airport with Fake Bomb

Anyone know what’s going on?

Star Simpson, 19, had a computer circuit board, wiring and a putty that later turned out to be Play-Doh in plain view over a black hooded sweat shirt she was wearing, said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the commanding officer at the airport.

[…]

She was arrested about 8 a.m. outside Terminal C, home to United Airlines, Jet Blue and other carriers.

A Massachusetts Port Authority staffer manning an information booth in the terminal became suspicious when Simpson – wearing the device – approached to ask about an incoming flight, Pare said. Simpson then walked outside, and the information booth attendant notified a nearby trooper.

The trooper, joined by others with submachine guns, confronted her at a traffic island in front of the terminal.

Geez. She’s lucky to be alive. What in the world was she thinking?

EDITED TO ADD (9/21): Okay, clearly we need a lot more information:

The woman later told police the circuit board with lights on it was a work of art.

And this:

“She claims that it was just art and she was proud of the art and wanted to display it. I am not sure why she had the Play-Doh in her hands. She could not explain that,” Pare said.

I have to admit that I would trust the authorities more if it weren’t Boston.

EDITED TO ADD (9/21): Here’s a picture. I’m leaning towards stupid police overreaction right now.

EDITED TO ADD (9/21): Okay, she made it for MIT’s career day:

“She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day,” Pare said at a news conference.

Definitely stupid police overreaction.

Refuse to be terrorized, people!

EDITED TO ADD (9/21): A better photo.

EDITED TO ADD (9/22): More news. I now have complete symathy for the student, and none for the police. I wonder if anyone wore their DefCon badge to the Las Vegas airport this year.

EDITED TO ADD (9/26): Really good information here:

Last week was Career Week at MIT. As usually happens during such events, the students turned out in high numbers to speak with company representatives
and examine the “free” items that are handed out to students who visit certain booths. Star Simpson, an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science major who enjoys playing around with electronics, wore a bulky handmade nametag to the event. It consisted of a breadboard, LEDs in the shape of a star (for her name), some wires, and a nine-volt battery. She taped it to her sweatshirt to keep it in place, possibly hoping that the company representatives would better be able to remember a student with a flashing nametag.

She also, as is custom, acquired a number of neat little items from the vendors there. I’ve seen some of what was available – bleach pens for clothing, large foam ‘pills’ that you could squeeze as a method of stress relief, small containers of Play-Doh. She picked up a canister of Play-Doh and placed it in her pocket.

Some time after this – I don’t know how long, sorry – she went to the Logan Airport to meet a friend of hers. I can easily see her losing track of time and being too rushed to put her sweatshirt away before leaving. Or perhaps she forgot the breadboard entirely – just as someone with a bandaged wrist will soon ignore its presence. Or perhaps she thought no one would care—she is from MIT, after all, and the culture here does not regard breadboards as weapons of mass destruction. Or perhaps she thought that it wouldn’t matter, since she knew that she would not be going through the security checkpoint.

And the authories are going to make her pay for their mistake.

Posted on September 21, 2007 at 12:20 PM • View Comments

Four-Year-Old Girl Asked to Remove her Hoodie for Vague "Security" Reasons

In the UK:

Ms Lewis, 36, said: “I was having a game of bingo while the little one was on the 2p machine with my dad Desmond.

“She had her hood up on her cardigan, a young lad came across and asked her to take her hood down because of security.”

She asked to speak to a supervisor and pointed out that, as other people were wearing baseball and beanie caps, they should also be made to remove them.

Ms Lewis said: “The manager told me I was being unreasonable, that I was making a scene and that my daughter was not going to be emotionally scarred because of the incident.

“I complained that she was being victimised and that she was four-year-old child.”

Posted on September 12, 2007 at 2:26 PM • View Comments

Stupidest Terrorist Overreaction Yet?

What? Are the police taking stupid pills?

Two people who sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare and now face a felony charge.

The competition is fierce, but I think this is a winner.

What bothers me most about the news coverage is that there isn’t even a suggestion that the authorities’ response might have been out of line.

Mayoral spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga said the city plans to seek restitution from the Salchows, who are due in court Sept. 14.

“You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know,” she said. “It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We’re thankful it wasn’t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out.”

Translation: We screwed up, and we want someone to pay for our mistake.

Posted on August 27, 2007 at 2:34 PM • View Comments

Vague Threat Prompts Overreaction

It reads like a hoax:

The Police Department set up checkpoints yesterday in Lower Manhattan and increased security after learning of a vague threat of a radiological attack here.

[…]

The police learned about the threat through an item on the Web site debka.com—a site that Mr. Browne said was believed to have Israeli intelligence and military sources—that said that Qaeda operatives were planning to detonate a truck filled with radiological material in New York, Los Angeles or Miami. Officials say the Web site carries reports that are often wrong, but occasionally right.

Occasionally right? Which U.S. terrorist attack did it predict?

Come on, people: refuse to be terrorized.

Posted on August 16, 2007 at 6:04 AM • View Comments

Security Theater

Nice article on security theater from Government Executive:

John Mueller suspects he might have become cable news programs’ go-to foil on terrorism. The author of Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them (Free Press, 2006) thinks America has overreacted. The greatly exaggerated threat of terrorism, he says, has cost the country far more than terrorist attacks ever did.

Watching his Sept. 12, 2006, appearance on Fox & Friends is unintentionally hilarious. Mueller calmly and politely asks the hosts to at least consider his thesis. But filled with alarm and urgency, they appear bewildered and exasperated. They speak to Mueller as if he is from another planet and cannot be reasoned with.

That reaction is one measure of the contagion of alarmism. Mueller’s book is filled with statistics meant to put terrorism in context. For example, international terrorism annually causes the same number of deaths as drowning in bathtubs or bee stings. It would take a repeat of Sept. 11 every month of the year to make flying as dangerous as driving. Over a lifetime, the chance of being killed by a terrorist is about the same as being struck by a meteor. Mueller’s conclusions: An American’s risk of dying at the hands of a terrorist is microscopic. The likelihood of another Sept. 11-style attack is nearly nil because it would lack the element of surprise. America can easily absorb the damage from most conceivable attacks. And the suggestion that al Qaeda poses an existential threat to the United States is ridiculous. Mueller’s statistics and conclusions are jarring only because they so starkly contradict the widely disseminated and broadly accepted image of terrorism as an urgent and all-encompassing threat.

American reaction to two failed attacks in Britain in June further illustrates our national hysteria. British police found and defused two car bombs before they could be detonated, and two would-be bombers rammed their car into a terminal at Glasgow Airport. Even though no bystanders were hurt and British authorities labeled both episodes failures, the response on American cable television and Capitol Hill was frenzied, frequently emphasizing how many people could have been killed. “The discovery of a deadly car bomb in London today is another harsh reminder that we are in a war against an enemy that will target us anywhere and everywhere,” read an e-mailed statement from Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. “Terrorism is not just a threat. It is a reality, and we must confront and defeat it.” The bombs that never detonated were “deadly.” Terrorists are “anywhere and everywhere.” Even those who believe it is a threat are understating; it’s “more than a threat.”

Mueller, an Ohio State University political science professor, is more analytical than shrill. Politicians are being politicians, and security businesses are being security businesses, he says. “It’s just like selling insurance – you say, ‘Your house could burn down.’ You don’t have an incentive to say, ‘Your house will never burn down.’ And you’re not lying,” he says. Social science research suggests that humans tend to glom onto the most alarmist perspective even if they are told how unlikely it is, he adds. We inflate the danger of things we don’t control and exaggerate the risk of spectacular events while downplaying the likelihood of common ones. We are more afraid of terrorism than car accidents or street crime, even though the latter are far more common. Statistical outliers like the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are viewed not as anomalies, but as harbingers of what’s to come.

Lots more in the article.

Posted on August 15, 2007 at 6:18 AM • View Comments

Movie-Plot Threats in Second Life

Oh, give me a break:

On the darker side, there are also weapons armouries in SL where people can get access to guns, including automatic weapons and AK47s. Searches of the SL website show there are three jihadi terrorists registered and two elite jihadist terrorist groups.

Once these groups take up residence in SL, it is easy to start spreading propaganda, recruiting and instructing like minds on how to start terrorist cells and carry out jihad.

One radical group, called Second Life Liberation Army, has been responsible for some computer-coded atomic bombings of virtual world stores in the past six months.

On screen these blasts look like an explosion of hazy white balls as buildings explode, landscapes are razed and residents are wounded or killed.

With the game taking such a sinister turn, terrorism experts are warning that SL attacks have ramifications for the real world. Just as September 11 terrorists practised flying planes on simulators in preparation for their deadly assault on US buildings, law enforcement agencies believe some of those behind the Second Life attacks are home-grown Australian jihadists who are rehearsing for strikes against real targets.

Geez. Do we all need to take our shoes off before logging in or something? Refuse to be terrorized, people.

Another discussion.

EDITED TO ADD (8/2): Another article.

Posted on August 1, 2007 at 11:49 AM • View Comments

Police Don't Overreact to Strange Object

It’s nice to post a positive story once in a while:

Is it a bird? Is it a bomb? No, it’s the missing ‘bot.

A robot dubbed Seahorse 1, which was stolen days before an international contest, has turned up in a field off Interstate 45 in Dallas.

“Somebody was mowing his grandmother’s yard and thought it was a bomb,” said Nathan Huntoon, an engineering grad student and member of SMU’s robotics team.

The police were delivering the missing machine to SMU Monday afternoon. “We don’t know yet if it’s in working condition,” Mr. Huntoon said.

Sad that this feels like an exception.

Posted on July 11, 2007 at 6:20 AM • View Comments

Silly Home Security

Fogshield:

Ask anybody who’s made money robbing houses, and they’ll tell you straight up: you can get away with a lot of loot in the 10 minutes before the cops come.

But the crooks won’t find their way out of the foyer if you hit ’em with the FogSHIELD—an add-on to your home security system that releases a blinding blanket of fog to stop thieves in their tracks. When an intruder triggers the alarm, water mixes in the FogSHIELD’s glycol canister to generate enough dry, non-toxic fog to cover 2,000 square feet in less than 15 seconds. It dissipates 45 minutes later, leaving your furniture unsullied and your electronics intact.

The website appears not to be a joke.

EDITED TO ADD (6/23): In the comments, a lot of people have taken me to task for calling this security silly. I stand by my statement: not because it’s not effective, but because it’s not a good trade-off. I can certainly imagine scenarios where filling your house with vision-impairing fog is just the thing to foil a would-be burglar, but it seems awfully specific a countermeasure to me.

Home security—like all security, really—is a combination of protection, detection, and response. Locks and bars are the protection system, and the alarm is the detection/response system. Fogshield is a protection system: after the locks and bars have failed, Fogshield 1) makes it harder for the burglar to navagate around the house, and 2) potentially delays him until the response system (police or whomever) arrives.

But it has problems as a protection system. For one, false alarms are way worse than before. It’s one thing to have a loud bell annoy the neighbors until you turn it off, it’s another to fill your house with fog in less than 15 seconds (plus the cost to replace the canister).

This whole thing feels real “movie-plot threat” to me: great special effect in a movie, but not really a good security trade-off for home use. An alarm system is going to make an average burglar go to the house next door instead, and a dedicated burglar isn’t going to be deterred by this.

Posted on June 21, 2007 at 6:55 AM • View Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.