17
Aug
2004
On any given day 15 million shipping containers are in transit around the world, the workhorses of a global bazaar that most of us depend upon for the goods that prop up our lives. Could one of those containers carry a secret nuclear device? Would anyone find it?
If you don't enjoy losing sleep about such questions, you probably don't want to spend much time around Stephen Flynn, a former U.S. Coast Guard commander who has devoted the past five years to investigating North America's defenses against crime and terrorism.
Flynn's research, which took him to ports and border crossings around the continent, began well before September 11, 2001. The terror attacks turned him into one of the most sought-after "homeland security" experts in the U.S. - but not necessarily one of the most popular.
For example, his answers to the two questions above are yes, and not likely.
Some 130 research labs in 40 countries "from Ukraine to Ghana" hold weapons-usable nuclear material under poor security conditions, and are thus easy targets for smugglers, says Flynn.
But U.S. customs inspectors haven't been trained to spot a nuclear bomb in a shipping container "because they don't have the security clearances necessary to get the briefing" that tells them what to look for.
More of the same Catch-22 shipping news is in America the Vulnerable, the book Flynn just wrote, and which has now earned him a leading place among America's proliferating prophets of doom.
That's not meant in any pejorative way.
Sober warnings of vulnerability are now conventional wisdom in the U.S. The book produced by the September 11 commission in Washington, laying out the systemic failure to prevent terrorism on U.S. soil, immediately rocketed to the American bestseller list.
The security at the Democratic Party convention - and the Republican one starting August 30 - is now as much a part of regular press coverage as the politics of both events.
The importance of people such as Flynn, however, is not so much in the educated warnings they are able to provide, but in underlining what you could call the new "politics of security."
Across the continent, a worrying schism has appeared.
On one side are government leaders, intelligence agencies, and law-enforcement authorities who have been working overtime to plug security holes identified by their experts.
Meanwhile, people are told that their job is to put up with the inconvenience caused by these measures. As long as they go along quietly, they are free (and encouraged) to go about their normal lives.
The other side is taken up by people who believe this passive approach to security is not only insufficient but counterproductive.
Flynn, for instance, believes that the current White House leadership has failed to mobilize the kind of grassroots awareness necessary for ordinary people to take the measure of their own security.
While we might not be experts in detecting "dirty" bombs, we ought to know how to deal with the kinds of emergencies that could dislocate our lives.
"Perky reassurances by public officials that they have matters well in hand are not only inaccurate," he writes, "but they remove the oxygen from a sustained effort to confront the ongoing terrorist threat."
No government wants to let on that it's not in perfect control. President George W. Bush's administration has an obvious stake in being able to show that it has made the nation safer.
A Democratic president would have the same instincts. Canada and Mexico are pursuing a similar course, with grandiose security plans intended to comfort their citizens (and reassure their powerful neighbor).
One essential for empowering ordinary people to take responsibility for their own security is knowledge. And the "new security politics" is partly about knowledge: How much information should people have?
In the U.S., color-coded warnings alert people to threats, but because they never fully explain what's going on - or why - citizens increasingly ignore them.
The civil-defense programs of the Cold War, in which students hid under their desks in nuclear drills, seem laughable now. But in an emergency, as the British found during the World War II blitz, someone needs to know what to do if an attack happens.
Yet today no one seems to want to annoy anybody with emergency evacuation plans.
Experts such as Flynn warn that protection from biological, chemical, or nuclear emergencies - or at least from the widespread economic upheaval they might cause - requires giving ordinary citizens a role in coping with them.
It might even make us safer in the so-called "war on terror."
"Power comes from delivering a punch," says Flynn, "but power also comes from being able to take a punch."
Stephen Handelman, a frequent commentator on crime and terrorism for publications including The New York Times and The Toronto Star, is the author of Comrade Criminal: Russia's New Mafiya.
Flynn's research, which took him to ports and border crossings around the continent, began well before September 11, 2001. The terror attacks turned him into one of the most sought-after "homeland security" experts in the U.S. - but not necessarily one of the most popular.
For example, his answers to the two questions above are yes, and not likely.
Some 130 research labs in 40 countries "from Ukraine to Ghana" hold weapons-usable nuclear material under poor security conditions, and are thus easy targets for smugglers, says Flynn.
But U.S. customs inspectors haven't been trained to spot a nuclear bomb in a shipping container "because they don't have the security clearances necessary to get the briefing" that tells them what to look for.
More of the same Catch-22 shipping news is in America the Vulnerable, the book Flynn just wrote, and which has now earned him a leading place among America's proliferating prophets of doom.
That's not meant in any pejorative way.
Sober warnings of vulnerability are now conventional wisdom in the U.S. The book produced by the September 11 commission in Washington, laying out the systemic failure to prevent terrorism on U.S. soil, immediately rocketed to the American bestseller list.
The security at the Democratic Party convention - and the Republican one starting August 30 - is now as much a part of regular press coverage as the politics of both events.
The importance of people such as Flynn, however, is not so much in the educated warnings they are able to provide, but in underlining what you could call the new "politics of security."
Across the continent, a worrying schism has appeared.
On one side are government leaders, intelligence agencies, and law-enforcement authorities who have been working overtime to plug security holes identified by their experts.
Meanwhile, people are told that their job is to put up with the inconvenience caused by these measures. As long as they go along quietly, they are free (and encouraged) to go about their normal lives.
The other side is taken up by people who believe this passive approach to security is not only insufficient but counterproductive.
Flynn, for instance, believes that the current White House leadership has failed to mobilize the kind of grassroots awareness necessary for ordinary people to take the measure of their own security.
While we might not be experts in detecting "dirty" bombs, we ought to know how to deal with the kinds of emergencies that could dislocate our lives.
"Perky reassurances by public officials that they have matters well in hand are not only inaccurate," he writes, "but they remove the oxygen from a sustained effort to confront the ongoing terrorist threat."
No government wants to let on that it's not in perfect control. President George W. Bush's administration has an obvious stake in being able to show that it has made the nation safer.
A Democratic president would have the same instincts. Canada and Mexico are pursuing a similar course, with grandiose security plans intended to comfort their citizens (and reassure their powerful neighbor).
One essential for empowering ordinary people to take responsibility for their own security is knowledge. And the "new security politics" is partly about knowledge: How much information should people have?
In the U.S., color-coded warnings alert people to threats, but because they never fully explain what's going on - or why - citizens increasingly ignore them.
The civil-defense programs of the Cold War, in which students hid under their desks in nuclear drills, seem laughable now. But in an emergency, as the British found during the World War II blitz, someone needs to know what to do if an attack happens.
Yet today no one seems to want to annoy anybody with emergency evacuation plans.
Experts such as Flynn warn that protection from biological, chemical, or nuclear emergencies - or at least from the widespread economic upheaval they might cause - requires giving ordinary citizens a role in coping with them.
It might even make us safer in the so-called "war on terror."
"Power comes from delivering a punch," says Flynn, "but power also comes from being able to take a punch."
Stephen Handelman, a frequent commentator on crime and terrorism for publications including The New York Times and The Toronto Star, is the author of Comrade Criminal: Russia's New Mafiya.
