[Nettime-bold] S is for Security

["McKenzie Wark" <mckenziewark@hotmail.com>]

S is for Security
McKenzie Wark

While the Bush administration talked up high tech missile defense, federal 
investigators already knew that one of the weakest links in American 
security were the lowly paid rank and file employees of the airports and 
airlines. Long shifts in dull, dead end jobs. An endless checking of passes, 
running bags over scanners -- it's not all that conductive to alertness. As 
is common in deunionised American industry, the airlines and airports don't 
screen prospective workers all that closely. Indeed they seem barely aware 
of their existence.

As the New York Times reports, "Each suspected or confirmed terrorist attack 
involving airplanes in the past two decades has brought promises of tougher, 
more expensive security systems. But each time, as the horror faded, the 
proposals have been delayed or diluted under pressure from the airline 
industry...".

The Times quotes a 'senior official' of the National Transportation Safety 
Board, who wisely chose to remain anonymous: " When you pay minimum wage, 
you get minimum- wage folks." Sad to say, if there is a weakness in American 
security, it may really stem from a shortcoming of American society -- its 
highly polarised class structure.

As the investigation into the high-jackings unfolds, there may well be a 
push to blame the airport and airline workers who are charged with the 
futile job of searching for the lethal needle in the air travel haystack. 
But it is vital to remember that these people are not to blame for the 
conditions in which they are obliged to work, nor for the bizarre priorities 
of the Bush administration, which talks tough on missile defense, but had 
nothing to say about more mundane aspects of assuring the safety of American 
streets and skies.


NOTES
Christopher Drew and Matthew L Wald, ' Security Long a Concern at U.S. 
Airports', New York Times, 12th September, 2001

A HACKER MANIFESTO 2.0
http://www.feelergauge.net/projects/hackermanifesto/version_2.0/


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