#SecurityTheater. You all know what it is. The attempt to make it appear that you are doing a great job of security an event/situation/communication/etc. Early in the days of #TSA, we use to accuse them of Security Theater. At least they are getting better. I recently attended #GoogleNext2018 in San Francisco. Each entrance of the event was guarded as you can see in the attached image. At each entrance, I was required to hand my small shoulder bag to the security guard, then step through the metal detector. My bag was given a cursory glance inside. Inside my bag was ANOTHER bag that was never opened during the 3 days I went in and out. What was inside the inner bag? What about the shoulder bag’s pockets? My inner bag was, admittedly, filled with medical supplies I need for my Diabetes (type 1’s holla!).
Given my interest in physical security, I thought I would test how effective all this was. The list of restricted items was pretty straight forward. Illegally sized knives, firearms, explosives, flammable gas, etc. I should have taken a picture. I was able to successfully enter the event repeatedly with some basic restricted items (knives) that were cheaply bought in the area. In fact, I loaded my bag down with weight one time that was approximately what my loaded Glock 21 would weigh (about .9kg). The suspicious weight should have been a tip off to any security guard. Nope. The other picture you will note is a security guard radio. Non-trunking, non-private. I was able to overtalk on these channels with my $10 ebay baofeng ht. So lets recap – An individual basically could have entered the event completely armed without any hassle, proceeded to jam their communications with ease, and begin causing some serious issues. Given the level of training of the guards seen during my day-to-day activities, they would have been borderline useless. In this day and age that is a serious thing to consider. So that begs the questions: what is the point and what can we do to change it? I’m not fond of a police state situation, but I do think there are better ways to control situations like this without the theater. I’d like to hear your thoughts!