This debate is one of my favorites: security and the role of market forces. I regret not having the time/energy to tighten and polish this essay below. Some paragraphs are almost note-like. If you can handle John Young, you can handle this. On Wednesday, October 24, 2001, at 04:23 AM, Ken Brown wrote:
mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Our society has, for all practical purposes, endless vulnerabilities. If as each vulnerability is exploited we plan on taking drastic steps to secure it from future exploitation, the costs will be staggering and the list of unsecured items will hardly diminish. The result of the current approach is an authoritarian society with a neverending, self-justifying security project ahead of it. Sounds like a wonderful place to live if you're an insect.
So we get either the Caves of Steel or the Naked Sun?
I'd go for the former, being a city boy, but I guess T. May, H. Seaver & D. Honig might prefer the hyper-exurbia of the latter. One step from the Machine Stops - set not in the ultimate city but in the ultimate suburb.
A debate near and dear to my heart. City vs. suburb, armor vs. dispersion. Closely related to issues discussed often in the "survivalist" invisible college, during war scares, Y2K, and the current situation. Some of us have taken responsibility for our own security by living in less-likely, more defensible targets. Others live in crowded areas, but have private security arrangements. Gate burb-claves, high security condominiums, etc. Privately arranged, not ordered by Big Brother. Cf. "Schelling points for terrorism" (key words, if not exact title), an item I wrote a few years ago about which targets are more likely to be hit than others. Clearly there are some places more likely for attacks than other places. And there are places downwind from nuclear reactors, downstream from dams, downherd from rampaging looters, and so on. Federalizing or socializing the costs of security is like federalizing or socializing flood insurance: it takes the efficiencies of the market away and creates distortions. What is being missed in all of the "rush to a security state" debate is the role of _private security arrangements_. Some examples, with a focus here on airport and airplane security: * one size does _not_ fit all. Not all passengers are equally likely to be security risks. This is common sense, but the civil libertarians call it "racial profiling." True civil libertarians know that owners of property (e.g. United Airlines) are free to implement security procedures as they see fit. If ABX Airlines wants to implement full body searches of passengers and XYZ Airlines wants to implement no security at all, to first order this should be a market decision. (There are interesting issues of "danger to others." Friedman the Younger covers this in his recent book on economics. "Law's Order." To wit, XYZ Airlines, with no security procedures, might be denied use of various airports, etc. A standard tort issue. The outcome is not precisely known, but a move toward "market competition for security measures" would flesh out many of these issues and outcomes.) * travel associations, with members vetted by other members, even with security bonds. Think "web of trust," but much more formalized. A "know your passenger" scheme that has no government involvement, no coercion. Those who are not "vetted" (with biometric/unforgeable credentials) are free to wait in the cattle lines with the other cattle before boarding the jets operated by private players. (Yes, this involves prying into private lives and habits, but no more so than corporations tend to do. For example, a 3-year employee of Cybergistics is "known" to many in his company. His basic interests and hobbies are known. More importantly, his coworkers and managers have a pretty good idea if he's a whacko, or a recently-arrived student from the Sudan who quotes the Koran. This company can "vouch" for one of its employees flying.) * Private security screening. Just as there are multiple airlines, in a free society, why not multiple screening companies? (No carrier would be "required" to accept the work product of a screening company, naturally. All a matter of market negotiations.) Some security screening would be done with the aforementioned "vouching." Some might be cases where customers pay several bucks a head to pass through various sniffers. Again, those who don't have arrangements with either vouchsafing entities or screening entities at the terminal can stand in the 2-hour "public" line. Akin in many ways to health care, with those having no other arrangments going to the public hospitals (not that I endorse taxpayer-subsidized public hospitals). * Close tie-ins with insurance. After all, the nature of insurance is _betting_. And it's a much better bet that a middle-aged white professor from Kansas is less likely to be a hijacker or bomber than someone like a 22-year-old immigrant from Pakistan with no career, no known associates who will vouch for him, etc. What would the "premiums" be for each of these potential travellers, and what screening steps would their respective insurance companies require? * Increased use of private charters, which already have their own security arrangements. Again, with vouching. (Some corporate travel systems already use privately-owned jets, with pickup from passenger homes. One of my neighbors works with the leading such company: luxurious jets, very fast passenger loading times, private security arrangements. They _know_ their customers, through vouching and past travel, and they don't have to have corporate travellers arriving "two hours early" for some bullshit inspection for fingernail clippers and copies of "Hayduke Lives!") * Part of the market competition is also the security policy on the airplane itself. Some companies will have titanium/Kevlar doors to the cockpit, some will have the typical aluminum foil/balsa wood consructions. Passengers will vote with their feet and pocketbooks, as it should be. Security will be driven by market forces, not by top-down, one size fits all, central planning. The basic point is to have the costs of security, of assurance, of insurance, *privatized*. Not for religious reasons of private vs. public funding, but to get the richness and flexibility that privatized, incentive-driven, risk-sensitive private markets provide. The similarity with Stephenson's "burb-claves" and with already-common private security firms is obvious. Even similarities with the Mafia. This idea is easy to implement, too. For example, let El Al begin flying within the continental U.S. Let them apply _their_ standards. Passengers can vote with their feet and their pocketbooks on whether they'll fly United or El Al. And let _all_ carriers compete on the basis of their security policies. Many of them already have their own terminals at major airports, so they can in principle easily implement their own screening policies, their own vouching policies. Lots more ideas come to mind, and are fairly easy to implement. The key is to get away from the "one size fits all." Liberty-fearing people like Reason's Cathy Young can sign up for her own security policies: no "scary" free speech, no plastic knives, no fingernail clippers, no "Hayduke Lives!" novels allowed. Sounds fair to me. Libertarians should be pushing the market approach to security. Reactions? --Tim May "Ben Franklin warned us that those who would trade liberty for a little bit of temporary security deserve neither. This is the path we are now racing down, with American flags fluttering."-- Tim May, on events following 9/11/2001