technology

By Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), U.S. Committee on Homeland Security Chairman

As policymakers analyze and evaluate ways of preventing terrorism, looking at past practice to determine future outcome is expected. However, this evaluation should employ accuracy and accountability. Stewart Baker’s accusations (See SDN's story: Are privacy groups making Americans less safe?) that civil libertarian groups prevented government agencies from implementing adequate screening technology are neither accurate nor does it hold the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies accountable.

Since September 11, the federal government has taken several massive measures in the interest of aviation security. Steps taken by the federal government, including the establishment of the Transportation Security Administration, have been no easy task. There is no doubt that we are better served by aviation security measures today than prior to 9/11. Some of these measures, however, can seem to erode privacy and civil liberties, and civil libertarian groups have the Constitutional right to speak against these measures. Mr. Baker should remember when he was first appointed Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security, though, the agency did not have a required mechanism to determine whether or not proposed technologies impacted privacy and civil liberties. Henceforth, civil libertarian groups were left to evaluate and protest these practices from afar.

Accountability factors were implemented in the 2007 9-11 Act with requires the Department of Homeland Security to conduct privacy and civil liberties impact assessments on all measures—including those that are classified—that could possibly affect privacy and civil liberties. Additionally, the 9-11 Act established an independent, executive branch agency—the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board—that would evaluate these policies and determine whether or not these would infringe on Americans Constitutional rights. Unfortunately, this Board is currently unstaffed, and appointments should be made immediately.

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver was largely a success. Well, let's say nearly a success, especially if you consider the uncooperative weather and the death of luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili of Georgia. I guess what I should say, is that on the security front, the Olympics were successful.

A few weeks ago I wrote a follow-up story about the Olympic Games and discussed the city's strategy to keep citizens and visitors safe. I spoke with Kevin Wallinger, the director of emergency management for the City of Vancouver, who was involved extensively in the planning and preparation for the Olympics.

He told me that one of the biggest challenges was developing the communication channels for various agencies. To support that effort the city renovated its emergency operations center (which is co-located with its 9/11 center) to better monitor the Games. All of this obviously costs money. And a lot of money. The EOC itself was a $1.5 million project. The city also deployed a temporary 100-camera video surveillance system that required a fairly extensive network be put in place (fiber ain't cheap folks and neither is wireless).

Overall, Vancouver officials said the cost of security was around the $900 million (Canadian) mark. That's no small sum, obviously. And that final price tag was five times what Canada estimated when it bid for the Games, according to this Reuters article. That's a huge difference and I'm guessing Canadians aren't so thrilled about it, especially now that they realize they'll actually have to pay for it.

Today, the Finance Minister is partially blaming increased security costs on the higher-than-expected pricetag of the Games:

“We did go over because of the added security costs by an additional amount that took us up to the $765-million total,” he added. “We have always been clear that there are other things that we would do to leverage the Games.”

But, in my humble opinion, Vancouver is not taking measures to leverage some of those security components. For example, those 100 cameras that the city installed in its entertainment district, well, those cameras are sitting in a warehouse now, totally unused.

Although, to be fair, the city has made some effort to make back some of that investment. As reported by SSN, the city is selling off some of the equipment in an auction. Recently, it opened up the sale of a 1,000-plus camera system to be sold piece-by-piece because it couldn't find buyers to take the entire load. But, is that really getting the most out of its investment? Obviously not. It seems to me the city would be better served by actually using some of this technology. I bet most cities and municipalities would die to have access to this kind of equipment and the infrastructure to boot. But, because Canada has so many restrictions on privacy (they even have a "Privacy Commissioner"), they're unable to maintain those systems in the city.

So, I don't buy it Mr. Finance Minister. Don't blame security for your sticker shock.

Full-body scanners supposedly make people nervous. And that makes sense. Individuals don't tend to like having their bodies exposed, in any form, especially to strangers. However, a new book, Skating on Stilts: Why We Aren't Stopping Tomorrow's Terrorism, tackles the "real" reason the TSA hasn't been able to deploy full-body scanners, despite the fact that the technology has been fully developed and found to effectively detect explosives and anomalies on the body.

The author, Stewart Baker, a former Homeland Security policy chief from 2005-2009, writes that civil-liberty advocates are the reason this technology still isn't in place and why our aviation system remains vulnerable. Baker blames privacy advocates on both the Left and Right for convincing the House of Representatives to pass a resolution in June 2009 forbidding the government from using the body imagers for primary screening. Which, by the way, I didn't know. And, apparently I'm not the only one. Baker addresses the public's misperceptions of how the government reacted after the attacks of 9/11:

"There's a well-established civil libertarian mythology about the nation's response to 9/11," Baker writes. "In the myth, a frightened U.S. government throws civil liberties out the window within weeks of the attacks, launching a seven-year attack on our privacy that a new administration is only now slowly … beginning to moderate. In real life, privacy groups mobilized within weeks of 9/11, and they won victory after victory, right from the start."

But Baker doesn't just discuss the issue of whole-body imaging technology, he also argues that these civil liberty groups worked to minimize the amount of information the TSA could gather in order to determine what passengers warranted additional screening. The original program was replaced with a system that only allows TSA to gather passengers name, gender and birthdate.

"If you've wondered why, eight years after 9/11, we're still looking for weapons and not for terrorists, now you know. Privacy advocates turned the use of even ordinary data like travel reservations into the policy equivalent of a toxic waste site," Baker said.

It'll be interesting to see how John Pistole changes the TSA's approach to intelligence gathering, especially considering that's his first order of business as the head of the TSA.