Fighting Crime From Above?

Bruce Schneier coined the term security theater. Security theater is defined as, "Ostensible security measures which have little real influence on security whilst being publicly visible and designed to demonstrate to the lesser-informed that countermeasures have been considered".

Philip Messing and Murray Weiss from the NY Post wrote about an "fake bomb" incident at Laguardia airport which reinforces Bruce Schneier's assertion.  According to the article:

Investigators made the shocking discovery after they retrieved tape from Port Authority cameras, fully anticipating watching the near tragedy unfold and ultimately using it as evidence against the mentally ill terrorist wannabe.

But when they rolled the tapes, the entire episode was nowhere to be found because of a glaring lack of surveillance coverage. "There was zilch," one flabbergasted law-enforcement source said.

"There was nothing of use," said another.

The sources also disclosed that what little video they did recover from cameras in the general vicinity was "grainy," of "poor quality" and basically "showed the tops of people's heads."

In fact, PA investigators and prosecutors at the office of Queens DA Richard Brown agreed that the tapes were of no forensic value and "unusable" against McGann.

The sources said both Big Apple airports — La Guardia and John F. Kennedy — are dogged by video blind spots.

"It's amazing how eight years after 9/11 . . . you would think they would ensure seamless camera coverage," said a source.

PA cops grabbed McGann, 32, as he "closed his eyes" and repeatedly clicked a trigger attached to wires running up his sleeve to what turned out to be a bogus bomb.

Sometimes politicians tell the public that these systems can fight terrorism even when there is a mountain of logic (and evidence) that these systems don't.  This failure at Laguardia airport is just another example of how ineffective publicly managed CCTV systems are.  In this case, the camera didn't even record footage that could be used as evidence against the man with the fake bomb.  The cameras were nothing but security theater, and bad theater at that.