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The business of appearing to protect
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Max Hastings writes in today’s Guardian about the unavoidability of increased security gestures in the days and months to come, and how thay will both be inconvenient to the public and largely useless to national security.
Pity anyone who must catch a plane or visit Wimbledon today, or indeed for many days to come. Following Friday’s London bombs and Saturday’s attack at Glasgow airport, security checks have intensified dramatically. Everybody engaged in what is now a vast industry wants to be seen to be trying harder. It is another matter, of course, whether all the conspicuous activity that follows a terrorist incident adds a jot to public safety, to compensate for the huge economic cost it imposes. Most security precautions represent a charade. It is probably a politically necessary charade - we will explore that issue in a moment. But we should be sceptical about its practical value.
I am relieved to see that there are commentators in the UK’s press who are willing to understand the issues and provide valuable analysis to their readers. After the weekend’s event in London and Scotland, the media space decended ino a cacophony of apocalyptical headlines which did little to describe the true nature of the events or the threat. In fact, the crude devices found so far could have done little damage, if any at all, as seen in Glasgow airport where the only casualty has been car’s driver.
The Guardian’s commentator puts it best in an imagined quote from a necessarily imagined honest, moderate politician:
After so much speculation about attacks on Britain by terrorists wielding weapons of mass destruction and biological weapons, it is a relief to see these attempts made with weapons as crude as cars filled with petrol and gas cylinders. The group carrying out the attacks are grotesque amateurs. At worst, their efforts might have inflicted the level of fatalities caused by a motorway smash.
In an ideal world, media organizations should be a lot more responsible when reporting on matters of national security, and the security response should be both measured and effective. Unfortunately, modern democracies demand just the opposite - visible mobilization of reassuringly large vehicles, cumbersome controls at key points of economic activity and blow-by-blow commentary of any ongoing investigation with no regard for the surprise element. The public demands it and its leaders happily oblige: the worse sin would be not be seen to be doing something about it.
The entertainment industry rules. It’s panem et circensis, all over again, except for a few good reporters. There is still hope 
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cacophony charade crude devices gas cylinders glasgow airport guardian increased security london max hastings media organizations media space sceptical security checks security precautions terror terrorist incident terrorist threat threat assesment weapons of mass destruction
Posted on July 2nd, 2007 by Roberto Hortal
Filed under: Commentary
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I think all that “security” talk is plain nonsense to justify the huge budgets spent on the police and the military. I would apply a model that has proven to work flawlessly: the Swedish. I don’t know how those sons of a viking riot have managed but reports of terrorists attacks in Arlanda airport or Stockholm main railway station have never made it to the news. Conspiracy to keep those mishaps away from being noticed? Most likely, but what if there is an actual Swedish way of avoiding that kind of events? I guess we will never know.