radiant.matrix

Why is it that, when food poisoning kills 5,000 people every year and 9/11 terrorists killed 2,973 people in one non-repeated incident, we are spending tens of billions of dollars per year (not even counting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) on terrorism defense while the entire budget for the Food and Drug Administration in 2007 is only $1.9 billion? — Bruce Schneier, The Psychology of Security

Mr Schneier’s point is that we (humans) make really bad judgments about security trade-offs. This particular quote made me smile.

I don’t think it should be taken to mean that the FDA is underfunded, or that we shouldn’t spend any money on counter- and anti-terrorism measures. But I do think we as a country and as a member of the world community, need to be re-evaluating what’s important.

The WTC attacks on Sep. 11, 2001 were tragic; and I think it’s right that people ask “how did we let that happen?” I just wish people would realize that the answer is not “we didn’t spend enough money making sure people take their shoes off in airports.” There’s stuff we found (thanks to the 9/11 Commission, mostly) that really does need fixing. However, part of the answer is also, I hope, that 9/11 happened because we’re unwilling to spend billions upon billions of dollars, give up personal freedoms, and live in fear just in case someone attacks us.

I don’t think 9/11 changed the world all that much — we’ve had plenty of devastating terrorist attacks in our nation’s history (even other attempts on the WTC complex) — it was our collective and disproportionate reaction to that event that has changed everything. I’d much rather we took another look, and said again that we’re unwilling to give up so much freedom, money, and mental bandwidth because someone might attack us again.

That’s not to say that some of the money and stress isn’t worthwhile: we should be spending money on intelligence, we should be doing more to share information between the agencies that now make up the DHS, and so on. These things really will make us a little safer, and that’s a good trade.

However, we shouldn’t be neglecting our other duties. In order to pay for anti- and counter-terrorism programs, we’ve been willing to reduce funding on health care, education, environmental protection, and so on. We’ve given up personal freedoms. We’ve allowed those who would voice dissent to be confined to so-called “Free Speech Zones”. And what makes it so truly terrible is that it doesn’t actually make us any safer — it just feels like it does.