The Price of Security

Last night I watched Ted Koppel's documentary "The Price of Security" and the town meeting discussion which followed. It was refreshing to see such a balanced, even-handed report where all sides were given an opportunity to state and defend their actions or positions. As was said near the end of the broadcast, reasoned discussions such as this will be impossible following the next attack.

I was very surprised to hear participants speak of existential risk (although they meant "to the US"), and most had thoughtfully considered the implications of their positions. Apparently these policy wonks and politicians are not as clueless as I believed. That made me feel a little better.

Koppel made the point that the only country on earth which was 100% safe from terrorism was North Korea, so the discussion is about where should we draw the line. Unfortunately it's not quite that simple. Most people visualize the vaporization of an American city by a nuclear weapon as the absolute worst-case scenario. That's not even close to worst-case. So, what degree of civil liberties do we give up to guard against total destruction of humanity? Where is the line drawn then? Is a worldwide police state or a total surveillance society the only answer?

In the world of computers, we connect to the Internet even though there is significant threat in doing so, because the advantages outweigh the risk. We use firewalls, antivirus and other methods to protect the computer as best we can, while still permitting access, but should that fail and the computer is compromised we can restore it from a backup.

In the world at large, it is desirable to have a large amount of personal freedom, even though such freedom carries risk that it might be abused, because the advantages of a free and open society outweigh the risks. Laws and institutions struggle to protect the public against abuse as best they can while maintaining liberty. The key thing missing is an "offsite backup" that would allow humanity to survive in the event our laws and institutions fail us.