Are You Scared Stupid? Do Tell 

By Michelle Delio

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57686,00.html

Shuck your shoes and socks at the airport as your luggage is blithely loaded onto the plane without a scan. Wait in line for the cursory backpack and bag search before entering a public building. We endure the inconveniences forced upon us in the name of national security by chanting the mantra "It's okay if it keeps us safe."

We'd like to think we're more secure than we were two years ago, that we're smarter about how to protect ourselves and our public places. But Privacy International, a coalition of human rights and privacy advocacy groups, charges that security measures are getting stupider by the moment.

To prove it, the organization has announced a Stupid Security Awards, an international competition to discover the world's most "pointless, intrusive, stupid and self-serving security measure."

Even before Sept. 11, "a whole army of bumbling amateurs had taken it upon themselves to figure out pointless, annoying, intrusive, illusory and just plain stupid measures to 'protect' our security," said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. "And those amateurs, set loose after 9/11, have now become a global menace."

"I suspect that there are valid security measures in place, it's just hard to see them amidst all the moronic idiocy," Davies said. "These days anyone with an 80 percent polyester uniform and a badge can get away with telling the public to do anything they please."

Privacy International is urging people to e-mail their nominations for the stupidest security measure before March 15. Davies said that 500 entries were received within 48 hours after the contest was announced.

So far, the airline industry has the most nominations from U.S. voters.

"About a hundred nominations describe blind, stupid and pointless procedures that even a moron would denounce," Davies said. "Like the woman in San Francisco who had to take her shoes off before boarding a plane, and then was forced to hold up her bare feet to be wanded."

"Airport security is still a joke," computer security consultant Richard Forno agreed. "It's what I call NERF-based security. Looks real, but doesn't hurt anyone if you get hit with it.

"Not a week goes by where some plane emergency-lands, somebody gets yanked off the plane for whatever reason, and for what? Paranoia has gripped this nation."

Forno's own pick for the stupidest security award: The U.S. National Homeland Security Advisory System.

"It sounds nifty, but no matter what the alert level, the only thing we're told in the public is 'stay alert, report suspicious things, but please live your lives normally,'" Forno said. "Well, duh. We don't need an increased advisory level to remind us that, and spawn the media blitz about what it means, what to buy, etc., etc., etc."

Some think that perhaps we're doing both too much and too little.

Security researcher Robert Ferrell said he thought that it was "utter nonsense" not to profile potential terrorists by national origin or age.

"Applying the most stringent security measures without regard to the likelihood of criminal intent is both ludicrous and monstrously inefficient. 80-year-old women from Dubuque do not hijack aircraft. 20-year-old Pakistani males with questionable passports do hijack aircraft. It's really not a complex equation to factor."

"Absolute security is an illusion," Ferrell added. "To pretend otherwise benefits no one but those who want to see our liberties eroded to nothing. Take all the precautions common sense dictates, and then go on about your affairs."

Davies hopes the contest will help raise awareness of security issues by taking a humorous poke at security blunders.

"I hope that making the Stupid Security awards an annual event will go some way to making organizations more sensitive about the effect they have on the public. But it will be a tough challenge."

The "winner" of the Stupid Security awards will be announced at the 13th Computers, Freedom & Privacy conference in New York City on April 3.











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