Security

Overview

The word security covers a wide range of issues:

home security
- intrusion prevention & detection
- fire prevention & detection
- disaster contingency plans (hurricanes, flooding)
- back-up utility systems (emergency water, electricity, heat, communications)
personal security
- physical safety (especially anything not covered by "home security")
- identity safety (prevention and detection of unauthorized use of one's personal credentials)
- privacy (prevention and detection of unauthorized distribution of private information)
"homeland security"
- defense against open attack by known enemies
- defense against terrorism (unexpected attack by unknown enemies)

Some common but mistaken assumptions about security include [1]:

that there is a basic, zero-sum tradeoff between safety and freedom: we can only augment one by diminishing the other
that major incidents such as 9/11 only happen because of some kind of "security breakdown" requiring stringent fixes by a protective government
that only professionals have a role to play in coping with 21st century dangers

David Brin:
- 2001 (post-9/11): The value - and empowerment - of common citizens in an age of danger: on citizen empowerment as the best technique for homeland security
- 2005: on Sousveillance as a means of enhancing transparency: "...the most objectionable sections of the Patriot Act were not those portions allowing the FBI to see, or surveil, a little better. (How, in any event, will you prevent it?) Rather, the truly scary parts of that law were those removing oversight, supervision and the power of each well-informed citizen to hold public servants accountable."

2006-11-15 Amateur Videos Are Putting Official Abuse in New Light (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) Sousveillance at work

2007-06-19 Videotaping Police: "Kelly was charged with a felony, spent 26 hours in jail, and faces up to 10 years in prison. All for merely recording a police officer, a public servant, while he was on the job."
- 2007-06-21 Wiretap charge dropped in police video case: '"When police are audio- and video-recording traffic stops with notice to the subjects, similar actions by citizens, even if done in secret, will not result in criminal charges," Freed said yesterday. "I intend to communicate this decision to all police agencies within the county so that officers on the street are better-prepared to handle a similar situation should it arise again."'
- 2007-06-21 A Crisis in Transparency by David Brin (piece at the beginning of a longer blog entry) comments briefly on the above case
2005-07-20 Federal Judge: Videotaping Police Traffic Stops OK: "A federal court has ruled police cannot arrest a man for peacefully videotaping a traffic stop." (Includes link to PDF of the decision.)