A New Age Of Security Or Just Old Ways Enabled Further?

March 17 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Social Technologies issued a news release last week offering its vision of the future of security involving the use of emerging technologies. While the analysis provided a clear and realistic picture of the direction in which the western world is headed in terms of national security, it (like most coverage on the subject matter) failed to dig deeper asking why we find ourselves in such a state of insecurity in the first place?

If an uniformed observer were to suddenly take up the topic of national security they might be surprised to find a limited discussion on something so important it could soon impact our every movement. He or she would undoubtedly find an extremely polarized argument with security buffs shouting “if only we could convince the masses that increased hi-tech surveillance is the only answer” on one side and the privacy advocates on the other screaming “Big Brother”. Thus, would the now confused observer be left with but two options - accept a future of ever-more minute surveillance in the name of stability or vehemently oppose the tightening grasp of a government that has already proved itself untrustworthy. Neither approach is very conducive in the long-term to maintaining whatever degree of security possible -  in fact, both will probably only make our fragile Western world more unstable.

The problem is this, although most Westerners seem complacent today and eagerly give up civil liberties in the name of security, they aren’t as unobservant as some would think. Should authorities continue to press for increased surveillance of the masses and not actually provide the heightened state of security promised, not only will those segments of society that are already criminal increase their unlawful activity, but prepare for those law abiding segments to take matters into their own hands, turning ever-more away from the law enforcement and government that seems now so desperate to secure its hold over the people. It’s a risky game the security profession now plays with stable society, failing to address the root causes of insecurity while layering on intrusive “security” measures that aren’t well thought out.

In the defence of my profession, which given the nature of many of the solutions now hyped (biometrics, new and improved CCTV systems, dragnet wiretapping etc) has been widely seen as the key conspiratorial implementer of George Orwell’s prophecies, national security is a new field full of wrinkles needing ironed out. The industry is full of stale thinking, and no wonder, the field is mostly comprised of former law enforcement and intelligence officers, defence-turned-security analysts and increasingly high-tech specialists. Those who profess some fundamental understanding of security were schooled exclusively in how to manage a situation or crime only after it has occurred. Those who were schooled in preventative measures tend to have tactics involving brute force, surveillance and psychological warfare applied mainly to enemy populations. And finally, those who develop the technology are driven by the market, producing tools that fit the needs of their clients not necessarily making solutions designed to actually increase security, but facilitate existing approaches. Given these limitations, the industry shouldn’t really be expected to come up with the proactive solutions we need that won’t threaten our way of life, which was once thought to be freedom.

The government, which had been widely believed to have the interest of the people at heart, fails to provide the objective analysis needed to prevent the implementation of poorly thought out national security measures. It’s difficult to take on such a role when those employed by the various departments responsible include the above security experts and a smattering of career-bureaucrats who are notoriously under-informed on core subject matter. Furthermore, as is the case with almost every government file, from foreign affairs to education to health care, there is a total lack of strategic and systemic analysis, meaning issues are only individually addressed without ever fully understanding how that problem fits into the greatly whole.

As a result, we have rapid uptake of hi-tech national identity documents without any solid analysis of how such an undertaking will effectively increase security. The security industry develops and endorses the idea, the government readily agrees and the people are told it’s a good thing, it will be more difficult for official documents to be forged. Meanwhile, it isn’t the forgery rate that truly threatens our security, it’s the possibility of terrorists crossing our borders (or so we are told). If terrorists are really as well organized as it is claimed, then certainly they will not risk entering a country with cheap, forged documents. Indeed, there are better ways to breach border security legitimately:

1. Find a domestic citizen who has no criminal background to carry out the attack;
2. Assume a deceased citizen’s identity, acquire the necessary supporting documents and apply for the official documents thereby living under an official identity illegitimately; or
3. Acquire a legitimate identity from a country sponsoring terrorism.

How fancy micro-chipped identity documents will answer any of the above threats, I don’t know. Do expect, however, increased wait times at border crossings as agents and travellers struggle to adopt the technology and suffer slow database verification speeds (that is to say, if the traveller is being checked against a wider system and not just against the document in hand). Be aware that automated kiosks that allow travellers to verify their own documents just made it that much easier for a nervous suspect to cross the border. And, perhaps 5 to 10 years down the road, anticipate a very angry public that after having bought into the costly national security measures now being implemented found themselves even more vulnerable to the threat of terrorism and other crime. Moreover, those angry mobs will have lost their faith in a system that continuously sold them empty promises.

Wouldn’t it just have been better to begin asking why we find ourselves with increasing stability in the first place? Why we are the target of terrorism? Or how the break down of families and communities might be contributing to increasing rates of crime? Or perhaps how our “correctional system” fails to correct criminal tendencies? Answering these, and many more, questions objectively (meaning outside of the government and beyond the reach of market influence) are far more likely the key to increasing security than cameras and biometrics.

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