After the 9/11 attacks, airlines and public buildings adopted a flurry of "security" measures, like taking away pen-knives from fliers or requiring visitors to office buildings to be photographed or present a driver's license.

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Bruce Schneier's seminal 2003 "Beyond Fear" called these measures: #securitytheater.

Schneier pointed out that these measures would be easy to circumvent, and were thus providing only the comforting appearance of security - not security itself.

https://t.co/5amHz6YAeN

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Security theater is worse than nothing. Security theater gives people the false impression that their risks have been mitigated, when actually things are just as dangerous.

After al, if you know that danger exists, you can take some steps to mitigate or avoid it.

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But if you have the false impression that you've been made safer, you might unwittingly engage in risky behavior.

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Like, if you know your car's brakes are flaky, you might nurse the car along to the mechanic at low speed on side-streets.

But if you don't know about the brakes, you're apt to discover their flaws at 75mph on the freeway.

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Despite the harms of security theater, it became a bipartisan consensus. Every attack begat more theater - taking off shoes, surrendering liquids, subjecting ourselves to facial recognition at the gate.

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Not just airports, of course. Public buildings were increasingly turned into a kind of state-run Broadway, with every employee a performer in a longrunning, terrible epic play called "Security Theater."

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Nowhere was this more apparent than in Washington DC, where you can't go out for a pint of milk without passing a dozen high-security government buildings, each under the directorship of a different auteur hoping to score a security theater Tony Award.

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As @sharrowsDC writes in @Slate, Washingtonians have been the involuntary audience at ground zero for security theater's participatory drama show, living in "the most overtly armored public spaces in the world."

https://t.co/T2LxU24rFw

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20 years of shouting at bike-commuters, threatening to arrest people for sledding down Capitol Hill and barking orders at lost tourists did not, in fact, make the nation's capitol secure from an actual terror threat.

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If history is any guide, the response will be MORE security theater, from "unscalable fences" (cheered on by the same people who told trumpists, "show me a 20-foot wall and I'll show you a 21 foot-ladder"), more forever-closed streets, more ID checks and facial recognition.

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Image: Lars Di Scenza (modified)
https://t.co/4ZgwOeFTx6

CC BY-SA
https://t.co/zMicjR4iqr

eof/

More from Cory Doctorow #BLM

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Mashing the Bernie meme; Know Nothings, conspiratorialism and Pastel Q; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/cKWPSzuYHE

#Pluralistic

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Mashing the Bernie meme: What if every video game, except Bernie with mittens?

https://t.co/Zcs71oUras

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More from For later read

Humans inherently like the act of solidarity. We are social beings. We like to huddle up and be together.
They used this against us.
They convinced us that it was an act of solidarity to flatten the curve, to wear a mask for others, to take the vaccines for others,


and to reach #covidzero for others. They convinced us that this was for the greater good of society.
In reality, this couldn't be further away from the truth. They have divided us and broken the core structure of our society. They have dehumanized us with their masks.

They set us against each other into clans on opposite sides of a spectrum. They have turned us into aggressive beings fighting for our survival. Some of us fear harm from the virus, others fear harm from the vaccine, and yet others fear harm from the attack on our civilization.

We are all on a flight or fight mode. We are all operating under the influence of fear. We must collect ourselves and reflect on what has happened over the last year.
How is this for the greater good of society?

They used a tactical warfare strategy against us.
'Divide and conquer'.
We fell for it.
Now we must become aware of it and fight back.
We must reunite. We must find true solidarity to save our world. To free ourselves. To regain our autonomy.
There is some valuable analysis in this report, but on the defense front this report is deeply flawed. There are other sections of value in report but, candidly, I don't think it helps us think through critical question of Taiwan defense issues in clear & well-grounded way. 1/


Normally as it might seem churlish to be so critical, but @cfr is so high-profile & the co-authors so distinguished I think it’s key to be clear. If not, people - including in Beijing - could get the wrong idea & this report could do real harm if influential on defense issues. 2/

BLUF: The defense discussion in this report does not engage at the depth needed to add to this critical debate. Accordingly conclusions in report are ill-founded - & in key parts harmful/misleading, esp that US shldnt be prepared defend Taiwan directly (alongside own efforts). 3/

The root of the problem is that report doesn't engage w the real debate on TWN defense issues or, frankly, the facts as knowable in public. Perhaps the most direct proof of this: The citations. There is nothing in the citations to @DeptofDefense China Military Power Report...4/

Nor to vast majority of leading informed sources on this like Ochmanek, the @RANDCorporation Scorecard, @CNAS, etc. This is esp salient b/c co-authors by their own admission have v little insight into contemporary military issues. & both last served in govt in Bush 43. 5/

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