JaBbA's Hut

Bruce Schneier is one of the world's leading experts on security, the founder of Counterpane Security, the author of some of my favorite security books: Practical Cryptography, Secrets and Lies and, most recently, Beyond Fear. And someone I have had multiple opportunities to sit down with and talk about the state of security, both digital and real-world.

He has long made the point that our government and media are giving the terrorists exactly what they want by engaging in "security theatre", which has no real effect on safety. He spells it out again in his newest essay, What the Terrorists Want.

It's time we calm down and fight terror with anti-terror. This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots.

But our job is to remain steadfast in the face of terror, to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to not panic every time two Muslims stand together checking their watches. There are approximately 1 billion Muslims in the world, a large percentage of them not Arab, and about 320 million Arabs in the Middle East, the overwhelming majority of them not terrorists. Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.

The surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to recognize that terrorism is just one of the risks we face, and not a particularly common one at that. And our job is to fight those politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn't make us any safer.

Ever since Reagan declared a "War on Drugs" we have gotten used to thinking about this as a war - and, of course, Bush just loves to think about his legacy as a "War President". But The Clinton administration had it right - these people aren't an army, they're a criminal conspiracy and it is criminal investigation and intelligence work that will finally stop them.

JaBbA says check it out.