An interesting observation

[unixronin]

This paragraph is excerpted, out of context, from an article by bruce_schneier talking about return on investment for business security.  It's an interesting observation nonetheless:

Or take another example: airport security.  Assume that all the new airport security measures increase the waiting time at airports by — and I'm making this up — 30 minutes per passenger.  There were 760 million passenger boardings in the United States in 2007.  This means that the extra waiting time at airports has cost us a collective 43,000 years of extra waiting time.  Assume a 70-year life expectancy, and the increased waiting time has "killed" 620 people per year — 930 if you calculate the numbers based on 16 hours of awake time per day.  So the question is:  If we did away with increased airport security, would the result be more people dead from terrorism or fewer?

(Emphasis above is mine, just lest it be overlooked that it's a speculative number there.)

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I have grumped that particular grump every time I have passed through an airport post-9/11 . . .

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

you forgot literal, return on investment...

according to easily found tsa.gov charts, they've made so much money in the last few years on "taxes and fees" relating to security matters, and flying, it's not even a joke... line item budget matters. they are MAKING money. wtf!

a glance at the chart shows they are increasing fees, and making vastly more money since 9/11 too. combined, it's a VERY hefty sum. what are they spending it on?

also: that doesn't include the vast monies i assume they are extracting from other sources too.

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[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about the whole security line thing this last weekend, since we were flying, with 2 small kids and all the attendant crap that goes with them.

Pre-9/11, security was a trifle of time and no one bothered much to think about it. Suddenly, of course, we were planning on an hour for security. In the last year, it occurred to me that we're largely back to not considering the time for security again. The longest I've stood in a security line in the last 2 years is about 15 minutes (SJC on a Monday AM flight to Dallas...line was backed out to the parking garage...in 2002, that length of line was a 45min wait).

If you were stuck behind me in the security line, the delay had nothing to do with them and everything to do with my trying to move 2 kids, a car seat, a stroller and a buncha carry on luggage through the x-ray machine without having the 4yo run off or the 1yo toddle off somewhere.

Now those Israelis...they know how to make security take 3 hours and make sure that you understand that they don't give a crap if you wait 3 hours...or a week or never get out at all, so STFU.