For the vast majority of Americans, the chances of dying in a terrorist attack are close to zero. There’s a higher probability that you’ll die by falling off a ladder than getting mixed up in some terrorist plot. So why is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security constantly telling every American to be afraid? That’s a strategy that creates widespread fear without making America any safer. U.S. homeland security efforts should focus less on what is possible and more on what is probable.
So says a very interesting article from Foreign Policy by Benjamin Friedman
The odds of dying in a terrorist attack are minuscule. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the odds are about 1 in 88,000. The odds of dying from falling off a ladder are 1 in 10,010. Even in 2001, automobile crashes killed 15 times more Americans than terrorism. Heart disease, cancer, and strokes are the leading causes of death in the United States—not terrorism.
People overestimate risks they can picture and ignore those they cannot. Government warnings and 24–hour news networks make certain dangers, from shark attacks to terrorism, seem more prevalent than they really are. As a result, the United States squanders billions of dollars annually protecting states and locations that face no significant threat of terrorism. In 2003, Tulsa, Oklahoma, received $725,000 in port security funds. More than $4 million in 2005 federal antiterror funding will go to the Northern Mariana Islands. In 2003, Grand Forks County, North Dakota, received $1.5 million in federal funds to purchase trailers equipped to respond to nuclear attacks and more biochemical suits than it has police officers.
The article has some thought provoking conclusions and I must say that for the most part I tend to agree. The British are much more experienced and prepared for terrorism that we are and I am pretty sure they are not throwing money after it as we are. We haven't done much of anything except create a huge new government money hole that, as far as I can tell, isn't doing that much more that what was done pre 9/11. I read, and posted awhile back, on the fact that about a BILLION dollars of the money spent so far on "homeland security" was wasted on poor technology and will have to be re-spent. Seriously, for those of us that travel a lot, there really doesn't seem to be much difference.
I have thought about terrorism quite a bit over the years. I have been around it since the late sixties in the middleast where I had to get frisked before getting on the plane. I have monitored the communications of Black September in Jordan while they held American flag planes and murdered my colleagues. I have been shaken down in bars and cabarets from Spain to Manilla by spies and probable terrorists looking for information so I am not a babe in the woods here. So, that said, I am pretty much of the opinion that we ought to disband the TSA and take all the money we are spending on "homeland security" and start spending it on things that will actually have a chance on making peoples lives better. Crazy idea I know but I though it was worth mentioning.
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