Caution -- Bureaucrats at Work
Generally speaking, I try to keep this blog ensconced in a nice protective layer of technobabble. I try to avoid politics here. Lots of people out there can give a much more in-depth treatment of political issues, like Professor Singham. I'm happier with the technobabble, and less likely to offend people (most of the time, anyway).
However.
I just got through reading a story at Yahoo! News about national security as a function of U.S. passports. I was struck halfway through by this paragraph:
While lawmakers do applaud the efforts to improve passport and diplomatic security so far, there is also agreement that significantly more needs to be done. "Protecting the integrity of the US passport is essential to protecting our citizens from those who would do harm to our nation," says Sen. Susan Collins (R) of Maine, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
How are we going to stop terrorists? That's right: Senator Collins is going to deny them U.S. passports. Take THAT, you fiends!
I'm going to make a temporary hole through the ozone-like Technobabble Layer here for a minute and remark that this is exactly the sort of loony big-government thinking that Republicans at the federal level have been espousing for quite a while now, and I'm still waiting for someone to call them on it. I like the rhetoric: "[insert federal project here] is vital to protecting our good, honest citizens from those nasty so and sos who would come right over here and DO THEM HARM." Don't worry, good, honest citizens, the federal government is watching over you! Like Superman!
In the past, many have held the popular, widespread, and, in my opinion, accurate view that the government of this country is a seething mass of incompetent, slow-moving bureaucracy. Why are we suddenly possessed of the idea that the same federal government can protect us from a kindergarten class armed with water pistols, much less terrorists? Why do we get serious news reports about how much safer Sen. Collins claims we'll be if we just fix those darn passports? Do we honestly think that the federal government is even capable of "protecting the integrity of the US passport," or that it would make any difference to a determined enemy if the government were?
Does the good senator know someone who just happens to be up to the job of fixing the State Department's electronic communications with FBI databases, or creating ProxPassports, or whatever remedy she has cooked up to make sure no terrorists get their hands on passports? Or does she just want to hop on the bandwagon of political leaders who have made vaguely reassuring yet totally useless changes to our security procedures, like the revamping of airport security?
These were questions people knew to ask about the local government in the small town where I grew up. Why doesn't anyone think to ask them about the people running the country?
Comments
I don't know if I told you what was parked outside the main security gate at Hopkins last time I flew out. There was a sign in front of a large glassed-in case of items proclaiming, "A SMALL SAMPLING OF ITEMS CONFISCATED BY SECURITY SINCE 9/11/2001." In the case was everything you could imagine from a grenade to nail files, from knives the size of my forearm to razor-edged playing cards. As I said to the passenger next to me, "Is this supposed to scare us or comfort us?" Moreover, how does this stash compare to what they were finding before 9/11? (It amazes me how no one seems to ask or investigate comparitive questions like these. Are we finding more items now? Are we finding more items because security is tighter or because more people are trying to sneak onto airplanes with playing cards capable of slicing throats?)
"Because the world is a different place after 9/11." Didn't you see the sign that saying, "Please leave your brain at the door"?