First: this "Economist Debates" format is a wonderful idea, but questionably executed. Its layout could use quite a bit of rethinking, focusing on improving usability for those who've only stumbled onto the debate after its conclusion (as I assume most of us have). I'm guessing that the format felt more natural and threadlike to those who were along for the ride from the get-go. But there's real value in being able to read the debate, after the fact, from start to finish in an intuitive and easy-to-follow fashion.
As for the content of the debate: I've been following Schneier's commentary on airport security for at least a few months now. What he's saying is no surprise to me. He's preaching to a choir of which I am a fast and firm member. On the other hand, I'm actually amazed at the willingness of his opponent (Kip Hawley) to concede some points that I would have thought were held as unshakable dogma amongst the TSA-apologist set. To me, genuine progress was made in this debate. This was not a case of two people's arguing pre-fixed talking points in circles around each other. This felt more like a real discussion, with give and take.
Kudos to The Economist for hosting this debate, and for attempting to innovate on the printed-debate format. To date, it's a format that nobody's quite nailed. (Nor, for that matter, has The Economist here). But it's an interesting step forward.
I suspect it is significant that Kip Hawley is former administrator. He is no longer being paid to stick to the party line in the face of reason and fact. A debate with the current administrator would be a display of colossal stupidity.
I agree with the format. While great in theory, it was poor in execution. It didn't help that the submitter linked to the "end" of the debate either.
Having said that, I actually had to click on "How an Economist debate works" link, which is directly under the timeline. Some work on said timeline would help tremendously in this particular format.
FWIW, as someone who has been following Schneier's commentary on airport security for at least a few years now, Schneier and Hawley have discussed many of these issues previously: http://www.schneier.com/interview-hawley.html
You need to click on the different days in the calendar to view the "remarks" for that day, and then scroll down past the synopsis of each person's remarks, and the moderator's remarks, to get to the actual arguments.
I would assume this -
"I have made two basic arguments about post-9/11 airport security. One, we are not doing the right things. And two, the things we are doing are wrong."
There's also the moderator stating that Schneier won. The derrier handoff is not obvious at a glance. I think a more neutral title would be better; this is an important debate, not cheering for your favorite sports team.
The moderator was editorializing on the massive skew of votes in favor of Schneier. “Winning” this debate is determined by votes, so there's nothing wrong with that.
I wasn't aware that I was making that contentious a statement.
Was just meaning that the titles on a news site are effectively headlines and that the style of how they are written can massively effect how much attention they are given.
>massively effect how much attention they are given.
This is very true. And is also a massive problem with news sites. You didn't post a accurate, descriptive title, you posted an editorialized opinion.
Yes, you get lots of views if you distort the article (18% do NOT agree that he lost the debate), but catchy title does not good journalism make.
I think HN should shy away from this sort of thing. We'll all complain about Fox, MSNBC and the Drudge Report for their ridiculous headlines (This just in, Obama sacrificed a child! Click for story!!), lets apply the same set of critical standards here.
> I have made two basic arguments about post-9/11 airport security. One, we are not doing the right things. And two, the things we are doing are wrong.
Far from being an ass-handing, this seems redundant: those two are the same statement, and that one statement is a not particularly damning version of an already familiar refrain. (The argument itself, I am sure, is substantive, but that summary is not.)
> You can do nothing, and then only statement "you are not doing the right things" would be true.
The statement "the things we are doing are not the right things" would also be true in this case. (Statements about the empty set are usually called 'vacuously true'.)
> You can also do both the right things and the wrong things, and then only the statemtnt "you are doing the wrong things" would be true.
I agree that "you are doing the wrong things" would be true, but what Schneier said, which is "the things that we are doing are wrong", would not be, at least by my reading with an implicit universal quantifier: "[all] the things that we are doing are wrong". I would describe your situation instead as "some of the things that we are doing are wrong"; and even that is implied by, if not equivalent to, "we are not doing the right things".
1: "we are not doing the right things"
2: "the things we are doing are wrong"
You're right that literal logical interpretation of 2 would be true if we are doing nothing, my bad, I've read this like it had implicit "we are doing semething and " at the start, and I'm quite sure it was meant as such by Bruce, but let's ignore that, and speak logic instead :)
We have:
D - set of things we are doing
R - set of things that are right
W - set of things that are wrong
statement 1 is "intersection of D and R is empty set"
statement 2 is "D is subset of W"
You can only change "the things we are doing are wrong" into "the things we are doing are not right" if we assume every thing is either right or wrong. I think there are some possible things that TSA could be doing, that are neither right nor wrong.
When D is not subset of (sum of R and W), then 1 is not equivalent to 2.
How is commenting on the facts "victory for the proposer, Bruce Schneier, looks certain. The vast majority of voters have agreed with him" in anyway editorializing?
I'd agree that Schneier has made the best arguments and conclusively won the debate. But that's still no reason for editorializing - the comments are the best place for that.
Editorialising is not making false statements; it is making value judgements.
EDIT: I wanted to clarify a bit more the distinction I mean to draw between 'factual' and 'true'. "Schneier hands former TSA boss his ass" is (for a reasonable definition of the terms) 'true', but so, presumably, is "Former TSA boss attempts to spread message in an unsympathetic forum". I would call both versions true but editorial ('editorialistic'?); whereas I would call something like "87% of people polled disagree with former TSA boss on security measures" factual.
If you click "Vote now or add your view", you find that 87% of the debate observers were convinced by Schneier. I believe that counts as an ass handing.
It's the difference between a Hacker News that tells you how to feel about an issue, and a Hacker News that assumes you're a big boy and can generate your own opinion. When linking to a source material it's best to stay neutral.
I don't see how title is telling me what to think. It's using interesting language. Artistic license != editorializing. If title had made some opinion on the facts, such as Schneinr is right, or made up something not in article, tsa stooge is an asshat. That would be editorializing.
I would hate it hn was reduced to "let's not offend anyone, groupthink" titles. Like "link to article."
People submit articles, they get to and should add their personality to the title. Otherwise why even have them, just suck title from page.
It doesn't mean that any debate observers were convinced by Schneier. It just means they agree with the motion.
In order to see who was convinced, you'd need those polled to have given their opinion before the debate and after, to calculate any change in opinion.
"More than 6 billion consecutive safe arrivals of airline passengers since the attacks on America on September 11th 2001 mean that whatever the annoying and seemingly obtuse airport-security measures may have been, they have been ultimately successful."
The first paragraph of Hawley's opening statement is a complete non-sequitur and doesn't bode well for the rest of his arguments.
I have this magic trinket that prevents elephant attacks. The lack of elephant attacks in the past decade certainly proves that my magic trinket works; would you like to buy it for $10,000,000?
So the TSA guy is trying at every turn to say there has been some value and success in the current procedures, whereas Schneier says there have been none.
But both agree on a picture of airport security going forward that is much more pre-911.
So its the TSA guy trying to CYA and not be held accountable for the cost carried so far, but conceding it has to end.
> "is trying at every turn to say there has been some value"
And failing to provide one well documented example. No, just saying there were some cases is not fine. We've had very detailed examples of issues from people who experienced them, we looked at videos taken on cameras, we've heard multiple analysis of the failures. From the other side I've heard only "there were some successes, really". They completely fail to validate this point...
So I read the entire debate and while I generally agree Schneier on this topic one of Mr Hawley's arguments gave me a few second thoughts about the efficacy of reactive security.
Bruce's argument is like this: There are two kinds attackers, amateurs and pros. Amateurs are easily caught because they don't have the time or knowledge to properly plan an attack and the pros have the resources to work around any defenses the TSA has set up because the TSA cannot be proactive enough in its measures. Bruce argues that post-9/11 security measures are both superfluous and insufficient at the same time.
However, what if the amateurs and pros could work together? What if the pros developed attacks and published the directions? Amateurs could use those directions to their hearts content. In that sense, reactive security may not prevent al Qaeda from attempting new clever attacks, but it will prevent copycat attacks an the part of sympathizers (or folks with their own agendas) who have no overt connections to major terrorist networks. Organized criminal hacker organizations have been known to pull this very same stunt by releasing easy to use programs which make it possible for dilettantes to pull off attacks that they would otherwise be unable to do.
In fact, it's a little bit like computer security, where, every time a vulnerability is discovered, either by a security researcher, or through a successful zero-day exploit, a patch is developed to plug the hole and thousands of sysadmins apply the patch as soon as possible. In this way, we can't prove that say, Apache, has no vulnerabilities, but we can be sure that it has no known vulnerabilities and all the easy ones to find have been dealt with long ago.
So it seems to me, that by routinely 'plugging holes' so to speak by implementing reactive measures, the TSA is increasing the marginal cost of each attack for al Qaeda significantly, and this hypothetically, does increase security.
Of course, that doesn't detract from any of the other arguments against the TSA in it current incarnation, especially the obvious haphazardness of its measures, the occasional abusiveness of screeners, and its political essence. It does though, seem to make one of Bruce's arguments seem less strong.
It's not as though the audience were disinterested judges -- they were partisans, and more anti-TSA partisans showed up to vote. Popularity contest, that's all.
And nothing will change though the Economist debate, or any other debate. Only declining profits for the arilines, spurred by declining passenger miles, will force change.
By then, TSA-esque processes will probably exist for every form of transport, including automobiles.
I disagree that nothing will change because of this debate.
It's slight, but now there is now a larger crop of people who understand two viewpoints on an important issue and are armed with better rhetoric for the view they espouse. That's a win.
Isn't it stunning how long it takes for our elected representatives to even begin to decide to do the right thing?
Granted, there was an overreaction to security following 9/11. We understand that the TSA needed to figure out how to do the job the public expected. We gave them almost a decade.
Concerns started to really amp up at the end of 2010 when those scanners started to appear. Last year, when so many stories surfaced of children being trauma-searched, TSA employees misusing the near-naked images, and then the full-body grope pat-downs -- I fully expected some prompt hearings and action from our elected representatives.
What did we hear from the people who are supposed to be protecting the citizenry? Nothing.
>"[I]f tomorrow air passengers were offered the option of a 'secure' flight on which all passengers are subject to security, or a 'non-secure' one where they could go straight to boarding, hassle-free," he writes, "I promise you that many travellers would still take the 'secure' option."
I would take the "secure" option because who is left taking the "non-secure" option? Terrorists.
If all the flights were "non-secure", just like every train ride, then we spread the terrorists out and my odds are better.
This quoted argument is moronic, he is saying in effect "either do it our way or not at all". No one is saying there should be no security at all. In the rest of the world there was pre-boarding security prior to 9/11, it was pretty much only the US where there was very little security on domestic flights, this presented a soft underbelly to attackers which only an idiot would have ignored.
El Al is the perfect example of how flight security should be achieved, and yes, it involves profiling to select the people you want to pay most attention to.
I wish Bruce Schneier in an otherwise nice essay wouldn't propagate the meme "the goal of terrorists is to terrorize".
The end goal of terrorists is to fight a war or change government policy (through acts of violence). They may have a goal of terrorizing, and they may even enjoy causing harm and terror, but that is still a means to some other end, not an end in itself. The USA is targeted because of how it exercises its power in foreign policy. That does not imply that terrorism is deserved, just that actions have consequences and should be discussed in a more intelligent way rather than deceiving ourselves with over-simplistic notions.
> I wish Bruce Schneier in an otherwise nice essay wouldn't propagate the meme "the goal of terrorists is to terrorize".
> [Terrorists] may have a goal of terrorizing, and they may even enjoy causing harm and terror...
Is it a meme, or is it a fact? The truth is, it's a fact. Terrorists use fear & intimidation (and yes, terror) to coerce governments, through public opinion, to change certain policies.
Terror is both the means to an end, and an end in and of itself. You are unequivocally wrong.
If they were trying to fight a war through means other than terror, they'd be soldiers, not terrorists. If they were trying to change government policy through means other than terror, they'd be lobbyists, not terrorists.
It's the use of terror as the means that makes them terrorists. Perhaps "the goal of terrorists is to terrorize" is, strictly speaking, an oversimplification, but it's close enough to the truth, surely?
As for the content of the debate: I've been following Schneier's commentary on airport security for at least a few months now. What he's saying is no surprise to me. He's preaching to a choir of which I am a fast and firm member. On the other hand, I'm actually amazed at the willingness of his opponent (Kip Hawley) to concede some points that I would have thought were held as unshakable dogma amongst the TSA-apologist set. To me, genuine progress was made in this debate. This was not a case of two people's arguing pre-fixed talking points in circles around each other. This felt more like a real discussion, with give and take.
Kudos to The Economist for hosting this debate, and for attempting to innovate on the printed-debate format. To date, it's a format that nobody's quite nailed. (Nor, for that matter, has The Economist here). But it's an interesting step forward.