Our freedom is our security.
It is true that security to live, and move, and talk without being blown up, poisoned or otherwise attacked is a fundamental necessity for liberty to have any meaning. But reducing our liberty does not increase our security. Quite the opposite. The dichotomy is false and the trade-off non-existent.
The ways in which many proposed security measures are supposed to make us safer must be examined closely as, at best, they serve only to reduce our freedom, at worst they actually reduce our safety.
The threats they are a-changing...Terrorism is not new. It has been with us for some time and it has been every bit as immoral and deadly as the new Islamic fundamentalists. All terrorism used the one terrible and immoral means to blackmail their way to their aims - deliberate inflicting of terror upon the innocent. All terrorist groups, such as the IRA, ETA, and even the PLO had something in common. Their diverse aims were essentially limited political objectives that could in theory be achieved by the ruling powers of the states they fought against. This meant that their tactics, however evil, ranging from car-bombings to suicide bombings, were not random acts of terror, but precisely targeted and controlled actions. In general, the more tightly controlled and regulated the terror campaign, the more successful the terrorist group. This also fits with the second common characteristic based on the limited political objectives - it is possible to do a deal with such groups and to some extent moderate their violence by either buying them off, or removing their grievances.
The IRA, having demonstrated their ability to both run a general bombing campaign and to pause and start it again seemingly at will, they have come surprisingly far in their bid for political control of both the North and South of Ireland. Similarly, the PLO might have achieved far more, if their leaders could convince the Israeli state and its people that they have the ability to prevent suicide bombings, not only sponsor and condone them.
Given their limited political ends, these groups have limited impact upon the states they operate in. This does not affect their tactics that were often unlimited in depravity.
Al Qaeda is a fundamentally different enemy - they have a profoundly different and altogether more grandiose objective. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be a powerful recruiting sergeant for Al Qaeda but it is not their raison d'etre. Nor will the removal of American troops from Saudi Arabia lessen their anger, though it may have been Bin Laden's initial trigger. Al Qaeda is the Islamic expression of fundamentalism, the extreme and often irrational but emotionally appealing resentment of the modern world by those who cannot adjust to it or comprehend it. This fundamentalism is not restricted to Islam, it has equally extreme strains within Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, but it is Islamic fundamentalism that has proven, at least at present, to be the most virulent and dangerous.
Such fundamentalism is expressed as an urge to return to an imagined past of greater purity, sanctioned by God, and it involves an intrinsic rejection of modernity in all its forms. This in turns makes the US, followed by the UK and the rest of 'the West', the first rank of enemies because they are identified as the standard-bearers of the new, secularist and individually-free world. And there is absolutely nothing the West can do about this, except cease to be 'the West' rejecting everything that has happened since the Enlightenment and the Reformation.
What Al Qaeda wants is a return to a purer, i.e. stricter form of Islam by the entire Islamic world and the currently favoured movement to take them there is Sunni Wahabism. Western contamination of Islam must be prevented at any cost, to Al Qaeda supporters, it is the main culprit in the 'backsliding' within the Dar-Al-Islam.
This makes Al Qaeda's objective both unrealistic and unenforceable. No western state has the power to remove its influence from the Islamic world. It is not only the commercial links, tourism and the West's consumption of oil. It means no influence at all - no books, no papers, no radio, no information, no MTV. Nothing that might give young Muslims the idea that there is more than Wahabi and total Sharia state. The only way you could achieve such isolation would be to remove the West and the rest of the non-Islamic world.
Al Qaeda's aims are not political and most certainly not limited. Their enemy is everyone who is not them. The PLO were not too upset about Japanese or Hindu tourists that got caught in their attacks, but they had no actual desire to destroy Japanese or Hindu society. Al Qaeda does. The IRA would never have really set off a nuclear bomb in London even if they could- it wasn't in their interest, not least because they live near the fallout. Al Qaeda would. They view any attack upon any of their enemies, at whatever level, as a bonus.
This has profound implications for the way Al Qaeda acts and the threat they represent.
Previous terror groups, such as the IRA, used a cell structure to prevent detection, but operated under a nominally unified command to provide control of their politically targeted attacks. Al Qaeda work more like a franchise. Anyone who wants to attack any of their enemies can use the name. A tiny splinter terrorist group gets the benefit of the big name; Al Qaeda gets the kudos of another attack, somewhere. They may offer money, technical assistance, ideas, planning assistance, safe houses, all different levels of support up to central planning.
The attacks are carried out by disposable groups. Al Qaeda has a central organisation and financing, which has been disrupted successfully by capturing some of the leaders. The threat, however, remains and it is several orders of magnitude more difficult to predict and defend against. As they brutally demonstrated, Al Qaeda really do "think the unthinkable".
My country is my fortress...How to defend ourselves? There are two broad types of defence against terrorism.
Active defence consists of such measures that disrupt, contain and ultimately destroy the terrorists. They include police and intelligence investigations, the judiciary, the use of informers and agents as well as technological intelligence, and in some states the death penalty, shoot-to-kill policies and even torture.
Passive defence covers activities such as building barriers around Parliament, posting armed guards and police in the vicinity of potential targets and is designed to make it harder for terrorists to carry out attacks.
No passive defence can be successful in protecting the society against terrorist attacks. No wall or barrier can infallibly protect against a bomb. This is not what they are there for. The rationale behind passive defence is to manoeuvre the terrorist into planning an attack complicated enough that it will be detected and thwarted by the security services before it occurs. Any successful defence always rests upon active measures, and it is almost never seen by the public it protects.
The difference between passive and active defence is crucial, especially when many measures that are and will be proposed to secure our safety are almost exclusively means of passive defence. Increased surveillance cameras or ID cards are designed not to catch the terrorist directly, but to make his life harder so that in attempting to circumvent them he is forced to measures that give him away. Therefore, in judging their effectiveness, the main criterion should be their impact on a terrorist and their ability to genuinely make his life more difficult. The truth is they do not.
Surveillance cameras are touted as the miracle cure for all security problems in a way reminiscent of salesmen of old selling snake-oil. Britain has already the most intensively watched society on Earth, which in a world including North Korea and China takes some doing. [http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t295-s2134034,00.html] In any case, surveillance cameras do not deter more than petty criminals and their most obvious effect is moving crime from one area to another, which is certainly not the same as decreasing it.
They are definitely of little use against terrorists. As a matter of simple economics any organisation with the funds of Al Qaeda can afford to spend some on disrupting surveillance in a given area, for a given time, then a state could afford to spend on surveillance technology everywhere all the time. No matter how good face recognition technology gets, without constant monitoring by a person and an immediate response, a surveillance camera is only a forensic tool. As part of a manned security system surveillance cameras can add to security for specific locations; but their effectiveness in providing security for everyone against an enemy willing to kill anyone is on a par with a dose of snake-oil. Against an enemy like Al Qaeda, ready to die for their cause, its deterrence value is non-existent.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the safest of them all...The UK government is, yet again, brining up the issue of some form of national ID card. They insist that some form of ready identification is essential to allow the police to track and combat terrorists (and drug-dealers, asylum seekers, and all the other people deemed bad by the government). However, ID cards will not help the state to track the baddies. They will help the police and the government to make life more difficult for the 'honest citizen'. The only people that will benefit from ID cards are those seeking to hide or falsify their identity, that is, terrorists, drug-dealers etc.
The argument over ID cards is underpinned by a kind of 'technology fallacy'. It tends to spin around the alleged effectiveness of the person's photograph, finger-prints, retina eye scans or other flavour-of-the-month system of identification. This is beside the point since, in practise, it does not matter how effective the recognition technology is. Even with one hundred percent accuracy of recognition, the effectiveness of any ID card system relies entirely upon the effectiveness of the bureaucracy that administers it.
The ID card is only as secure and useful as the reliability, in every sense, of the officials who issue it, and those who check it. A department of the British government (or any government for that matter) that is efficient enough to handle ID cards for a population of 60 million plus visitors, without a single error, has not been created yet.
And it has to be total and complete reliability, because the whole point is to check the identity of those who by definition are trying their hardest to hide. Remember, the main pillar of the government's argument is the protection of innocent citizens against terrorists and criminals. If it can be proven that ID cards cannot effectively do that, they have no case.
It may be worth taking a closer look at just how hard it is to administer ID cards, or to put it more relevantly, how easy they are to get round. Who will issue these cards in the first place? And based upon what standard of proof? I arrive at my local Post Office, tell them who I am, and they give me a card? Do you seriously believe that in all the Post Offices across the country Al Qaeda (or for that matter the Medelin cocaine cartel, or anyone else with money) can't find a low level employee who is a sympathiser or can be bribed and will issue absolutely genuine ID cards to anyone with any ID's they want.
The new ID card is to contain one's address. What happens when you move house? Who alters the details, and how hard are they to bribe? Or blackmail? Perhaps it is all done centrally, by fully trustworthy officials. At a central office in London. Issuing ID cards for 60 million people. Plus visitors. (Visitors don't need ID cards? "Hello, Sir, may I see your ID card?" "Sorry Officer, I'm just visiting"). And of course updating, every day, without error, every change to 60 million people's details. Ever tried to get a passport in a hurry? Or a driving license?
But let us imagine, for one wild and unreal moment that the state has somehow managed to issue everyone a new, shiny and accurate ID card. If the card is to be useful it needs to be checked regularly to see where you are and what you are doing. Who does the checking? Most stores will take your credit card if you sign it 'Mickey Mouse'. Most people only glance at pictures on ID cards. And in most cases, the bored, overworked official, hotel clerk, shop-keeper or security guard checking your ID will only care about ticking the right box.
This is the heart of the problem, an ID card allows a terrorist to go everywhere far more easily because he will certainly have a genuine ID card. Just as public investment crowds out private investment, public systems of identification will crowd out native common sense. Instead of motivating people to rely upon their common sense to identify those who should not be there, an ID card will make them suspend the vigilance that just might help them spot the stranger with odd behaviour and potentially prevent a crime or a terrorist attack. It is true that the curiosity and concern of the average citizen today is in no way a system of identifying people. However, neither are ID cards, if we compare like with like. And common sense cannot be forged or faked.
No security without freedom...Are there any alternatives to the government's proposals to monitor us all in the name of safety? First of all, the only ultimately successful form of defence is active defence. This means not only increased budgets, more agents, double agents and analysts. It also means taking the gloves off in other respects. To have harsher penalty or even the death penalty as a punishment and deterrence for those who plot or assist mass murder seems to me to strengthen, not reduce my freedom. And it is a deterrent even for Al Qaeda. They may use people willing to blow themselves up to achieve 'martyrdom', but these are the disposable tools at the bottom of the hierarchy. Very few at the top are willing to risk their lives. There is a world of difference between a spectacular 'martyrdom' for your cause, and the long slow walk to the gallows. There are indeed people within these organisations who can be deterred by the credible threat of death. There is a moral question here, but in it must be better to inflict greater suffering on identified terrorists than to duck the moral issue and try to compensate by increasing surveillance on everyone else instead. The most effective defence will always be out of sight, if not out of mind.
What kind of passive defence should we have to match the active defence measures? There is no ready made solution. Total security is not on offer, and anyone claiming to provide it should be regarded with the deepest suspicion. The choice before us is to make an intelligent trade-off between liberty and safety, seeking to maximise both without being able to achieve the ideal of either. So to argue against any proposed security system on the grounds that it won't make us completely safe is pointless. The question is will it make us safer than the alternatives?
Fortunately there is no direct trade-off between safety and liberty. Societies most vulnerable to terrorism are the ones where the state is least trusted by the people. Authoritarian regimes are the places where, despite the secret police, the terrorists have had most success. The West was not at all prepared for September 11th, but since then the attacks by Al Qaeda were aimed at the Third World countries far less free than Britain or America. This is not because Al Qaeda have not tried to harm us. It is because it is easier to be a terrorist in a society where everybody knows they are monitored and no one dares talk to strangers.
Paradoxically, in such societies suspicious behaviour, even if noticed, will not be reported by most people. The 'honest citizens' become skilled at not seeing and not saying for they are the true victims of such regimes. In a free society, especially one that knows itself to be under attack, its citizens will notice and will inform the police, especially if the popular awareness is that the police are here to protect rather than oppress. Where would a prospective suicide bomber find it easiest to learn his job without notice? It is far easier to bribe an official for the permits and access to learn to fly planes in an Arab country, than it will now be in the West. (The example may seem obvious, but no intelligence agency could predict all the possible ways an "unlimited" terrorist group such as Al Qaeda might attack.)
A free citizenry that responds to the suspicious can be more effective in protecting itself than a centralised and inherently inefficient Big Brother. Where once an armed society was a free society, it is now far truer that an informed society is a free society. And it is in the rich, free and prosperous West that every person will soon have a camera built into their phone, that every major event will be captured on a dozen home movie cameras. With enough time and money you can circumvent any fixed surveillance system, but you cannot jam every camera owned by every individual in a street of a free western city. Our security and the form it will take is a responsibility that we cannot contract out to anyone else, morally or practically. It is up to us to find the way.
Our freedom, in every sense, is our security.
