Welcome To Security Theatre

NBC reports that UK authorities would have preferred to let investigations of the "liquid bomb" plotters, their plans and their possible connections run just a while longer but were pressured into moving by U.S. officials:

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.

The source did say, however, that police believe one U.K.-based suspect was ready to conduct a "dry run." British authorities had wanted to let him go forward with part of the plan, but the Americans balked.

At the White House, a top aide to President Bush denied the account.

...The British official said the Americans also argued over the timing of the arrest of suspected ringleader Rashid Rauf in Pakistan, warning that if he was not taken into custody immediately, the U.S. would "render" him or pressure the Pakistani government to arrest him.

British security was concerned that Rauf be taken into custody "in circumstances where there was due process," according to the official, so that he could be tried in British courts. Ultimately, this official says, Rauf was arrested over the objections of the British.

Let's read between some lines here. Doesn't that say that the Brit security services were worried Rauf would be tortured and then they couldn't use anything he said in a UK court? But that Blair couldn't stop his allies doing it so he caved then decided to follow the Bush hype for political ends?

It looks very like British security was over-ruled by politicians with other considerations on their minds. The Bush administration have taken that co-option even further by gleefully leaking like sieves for their own gain. Happily, the plot was being carefully watched from early on and so there was never a chance British intelligence would have allowed it to be carried out. No lives were in danger. That makes it Christmas come early for three politically endangered groups.

Pakistan's Musharaff gets to look proactive on international terror at a time when everyone is noticing how many terrorists have Pakistani roots as well as getting to arrest some homegrown thorns who have been direct threats to Musharaff's power. Meanwhile they are actually leaving untouched those terrorists they approve of - like the LeK, accused of involvement not only in this plot but also in the Mumbai bombings. Pakistan has placed the group's founder under house arrest for just one month, something they have done before only to release him as soon as the world looked away.

Bush and Co. get a big scary story just in time for the campaigning season and just after Lieberdolt has been trounced because the American people were beginning to see the deep, dark, Iraqi wooods past the "Long War" trees. Michael Chertoff can call for surveillance without warrants, citing the British successes (and hoping no-one realizes the Brits have to have warrants too but seem to have no problem with doing so) while co-opting a tale of hands-on intelligence work at its finest for the drive to repress civil liberties and to hand ever more money to the GOP's corporate backers for less-than-useful big-box electronic intelligence gathering. The militant base gets some tossed-out references to their favourite phrase, "Islamofascists", to help bolster their bigotry and give them a push towards labelling everyone but themselves as "enemies" or "insurgents".

Blair and his "New" Labour crew, like Bush, get a scary stick to beat the rebels with...only this time the rebels are within his own party where over 100 Labour MP's want parliament recalled so they can roast His Poodleness over his tail-wagging sycophancy in the latest neocon misadventure and in the "war on some terror" generally.

It looks like a win all around for lovers of power over freedom. Except for Blair, perhaps...

People are questioning the neocon mission and British foreign policy's aquiescence thereto -even those who have previously supported Blair. Word is that he will face, at the very least, calls for a Royal Commission to investigate the links between Britain’s foreign policy since 9/11 and the claimed “radicalisation” of British-born Muslims when he returns from his holiday in the sun.

But hints from Whitehall over the last two days indicate a likely hardening of resolve against extremism rather than any urge to examine its primary source. Blair had planned a series of foreign policy speeches this summer and even the conflict in Lebanon didn’t get in the way of what one aide called “the Prime Minister keeping himself on-message”.

In a recent speech at the University of California in Los Angeles, after a meeting with George Bush, Blair described “an arc of extremism” stretching across the Middle East and “touching with increasing definition countries far outside the region”. His speech echoed parts of Bush’s “axis of evil” State of the Union address in 2002, when he said “our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun”.

Bush had the US choosing “freedom and the dignity of every life” and the enemy choosing “tyranny and death”. Blair opted for “tolerance and freedom” in place of “division and hatred”. And Blair’s idea of victory was effectively the same: “It can only be won by showing that our values are stronger, better and more just, more fair than the alternative.”

He also tried a revisionist view of why the war in Iraq had been fought: “We’re fighting a war, not just against terrorism but about how the world should govern itself in the early 21st century, about global values.” So US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq was not just about “regime change” but “values change”.

For one Foreign Office adviser – who said Blair’s “joined-at-the-brain” relationship with Bush was “perhaps the largest post-war folly of any British government” – the speech indicated Blair was “even closer to Bush now than at any time . They’ve both made colossal errors, colossal and costly misjudgements. But surrounded by critics and evidence of the mistakes, they deny any fallout from foreign policy as simply part of a wider war. The scale of the airline plot will not unnerve Tony Blair, it will reinforce his belief that he’s been completely correct.”

He might find it harder to shrug off other possible backlashes though - such as resignations of prominent Labour appointees or a broad-based move to call for a vote of no confidence.

Yet all of this political windfall from a scary plot and a whole bunch of slamming the door after the horse has left the stable ignores a basic truth. I will let security expert Bruce Schnier explain it.

Banning box cutters since 9/11, or taking off our shoes since Richard Reid, has not made us any safer. And a long-term prohibition against liquid carry-ons won't make us safer, either. It's not just that there are ways around the rules, it's that focusing on tactics is a losing proposition.

It's easy to defend against what the terrorists planned last time, but it's shortsighted. If we spend billions fielding liquid-analysis machines in airports and the terrorists use solid explosives, we've wasted our money. If they target shopping malls, we've wasted our money. Focusing on tactics simply forces the terrorists to make a minor modification in their plans. There are too many targets -- stadiums, schools, theaters, churches, the long line of densely packed people before airport security -- and too many ways to kill people.

Security measures that require us to guess correctly don't work, because invariably we will guess wrong. It's not security, it's security theater: measures designed to make us feel safer but not actually safer.

Airport security is the last line of defense, and not a very good one at that. Sure, it'll catch the sloppy and the stupid -- and that's a good enough reason not to do away with it entirely -- but it won't catch a well-planned plot. We can't keep weapons out of prisons; we can't possibly keep them off airplanes.

The goal of a terrorist is to cause terror. Last week's arrests demonstrate how real security doesn't focus on possible terrorist tactics, but on the terrorists themselves. It's a victory for intelligence and investigation, and a dramatic demonstration of how investments in these areas pay off.

And if you want to know what you can do to help? Don't be terrorized. They terrorize more of us if they kill some of us, but the dead are beside the point. If we give in to fear, the terrorists achieve their goal even if they were arrested. If we refuse to be terrorized, then they lose -- even if their attacks succeed.

That last line could well be good advice for liberal candidates fighting the Right's political use of terror attacks in the run up to November too.