We're a strange people. I'm unsure if this is an Americanism, or just a human trait, but it's kind of weird, and definitely rates high on the selfishness scale. A raid was conducted yesterday against a terror cell in New Jersey planning an attack on Ft. Dix. The raid was the result of good old fashioned police work, complete with a paid snitch and all the leg-work you would expect. Notice there were no restrictions on liquids or gels involved in this bust.
What I found annoying in local coverage, however, was that the media immediately jumped into super-hyped panic mode. "What if this were to happen here?!?!?", they'd say. Well, I hope that the investigators here are just as smart as the investigators in NJ, meaning they would take the tip and run with it, too. Hopefully people here would be just as cognizant of aberrant behavior and would report it accordingly.
There's an interesting lesson here for security professionals. That lesson is to make sure your monitoring and detection capabilities are well-tuned, with investment in improving those capabilities over time. We cannot catch or stop all threats. We cannot know of all vulnerabilities. Thus, risk can never be completely eliminated. Therefore, it is incumbent upon security professionals to stay alert and vigilant at our posts, keeping a bright eye poised to catch new attempts to exploit our weakness.
In this specific case, I would fully expect the DoD to conduct a review of base security procedures, in light of attack details, to ensure that the loopholes being prosecuted are properly defended, or to determine if they could even be closed. At some point, one has to make a compromise, such as in allowing pizza delivery personnel through the gate. This is no different than the decision to let people visit your public web site. The main question, then, is how you inspect those visitors, and what is considered a reasonable and acceptable amount of time spent on that inspection.
Don't buy into the media hype. Use this as another learning exercise, geared to refocus attention where needed. Successes in investigation like this should reinvigorate your security departments/teams. Investigation works, given effort and due diligence. Learn, adapt, move on. The next threat will almost certainly be different.
If you want more information on the incident, my local ABC affiliate, WJLA, has a decent story on it here. A heart congratulations to law enforcement for their success. A big "stop it, booooo" to the media for once again trying to cause panic in exploiting this news.
Comments (1)
Don't buy in to the media hype!
The media is not there to inform, its there to (a) sell advertising space and (b) entertain.
This over-dramatization is just an emergent propery of that basic straegy.
So long as you are addicted to this process it is convenient for other entities to hi-jack the channel for their own purposes. This is not conspiracy theory, its just good business. Herst did it. Even today newspapers and broadcasters are going to think twice about something that might cause their Major advertisers to withdraw their business.
Nothing stranga about this. Just business. Just like getting a scoop.
But when there are no other channels for information or to verify or express opinion, or they are smothered for financial reasons, then society is in a bad way.
Freedom of the press? Free to make a profit or free to go bankrupt. It takes money to run a newspaper.
Posted by Anton Aylward | May 9, 2007 8:16 AM
Posted on May 9, 2007 08:16