Security v Freedom: Decisions

We are at an interesting time of choice in American history.

• How much security is enough security?
• Must more security mean a loss of more personal liberties and privacy?
• What is the balance between organic and technological security solutions?
• Is the conversation about people management and control, is it about security, or are they the same?

If you don't want to be in a global database, the current solution statement to our current problem statement of increased security means we choose an organic security solution. This implies we then stand in line and wait to be scanned naked with a system that allegedly does not cache our images and/or be frisked in an 'enhanced' manner. Managing mass people populations is difficult and mass solutions are often sought. For example, intimidation, humiliation and fear are oft-employed methods of people management and we need look no further than historical and current 1st and 3rd-world war and conflict history for examples. People tend to bend to intimidation and humiliation and seek to avoid it through compliance or escape. Our US experiences to-date have even employed strikingly loud and embarrassing talk about a person, in front of a person, while in the midst of a large, inconvenienced crowd. We do not have an easy path to walk in terms of increased security expectations increasingly enforced organically.

Another option is to reduce security with the possibility of increased accidents and tragedies. If we choose to use airports and desire reduced security or non-technology based security solutions, this means we are hoping that the person in Detroit, Michigan has the same level of knowledge and training as the person in Phoenix, Arizona and that they are both acting according to all practicable boundaries of acceptability, respect and integrity in predictable and repeatable manner. The variability in human behaviour is of course unpredictable else we would reasonably and accurately predict the stock market, currency valuation, crime, corruption, Presidential and Congressional decisions and children. Our question is the same, whether organic, technical or a blend of both to do the job: "Do we increase security, and if yes, how? Do we decrease security, and if yes, to what trade-off if any?"

If you don't mind being in a database with Big Brother watching and logging your life for history, trending and forecasting, then the implementation of more intelligent and multi-tendriled technology solutions will more than likely eliminate the physical intrusion upon your person and belongings while clandestinely taking away your societal anonymity. In the State of Iowa for example, even if you choose to stop using the airline systems, in order to get your driver's license your face will be scanned into a national database and validated as approved or unapproved for a variety of considerations. We should not be surprised if this database is shared across multiple domestic and international organizations. As government institutions do not tend to be on the cutting edge of original thought and technology adoption, we should further not be surprised when these same institutions fail to manage the data and it is hacked and abused domestically and internationally.

For those of us who haven't yet considered this phenomenon, as a population, we are already tracked. Our cellphones ping cell sites every three seconds telling the switch where we are for the purposes of billing. This data may be used to generally triangulate location of cellphone and a user. This data often includes the international mobile equipment identifier number (IMEI), international mobile subscriber identifier (IMSI) and the cellphone number which are all associated to a billing name and address. And many of today's smartphones include GPS and IP location based tracking enabling user's and watcher's the ability to identify from what location a blog post was pushed, a tweet tweeted and where you are in relation to your friends geographically. If I have a cellphone turned on, I am tracked. To what degree I am tracked is, for now, up to me. How many people are using cellphones? According to the NY Times in a 2010 dated article, nearly 90% of all US households. As for the world? Wikipedia is tracking this by country in terms of technology adoption comparisons. We're already using tracking technology whether we know it or not.

And on the internet, there are no secrets. Similar to car having unique chassis and engine block numbers, so do all technical devices. And to be on the internet, similar to all countries with postal systems needing street names and house numbers, computers and networks are the same. Each device on the net has a unique identifier. Each router that a computer routes through for traffic has a house number as well. And the servers from which we pull data? Yep. Numbered. You want to be on the net? You can be found. Think you're anonymous? Yes, it is still possible. Though it is becoming more challenging for the general non-technical populous to understand how that is achieved. You should assume that everything you do on the net is trackable, logged and associative to you, personally. Corporations do this in self-defense. ISPs, whether they do it on purpose or not, can. If electronic and on the net, tracked, logged and assigned to a unique user id. In terms of the internet, we are already tracked. Have you thought about buffered IP calls?

And what about transportation? Particularly transportation that has an internet connection? Well, if you're car doesn't already have GPS installed, soon it will have internet. And if internet, then unique identifier numbers. In your car and think you're anonymous? You have your cellphone with you don't you? And if your car is equipped with GPS and/or internet, we have other coordinates as well. There is only one thing missing.

In terms of technology adoption and security, the only thing we haven't yet discussed is the insertion of RFID tags into our bodies. We already track all of the hardware items we use on a daily basis. Now how about our physical bodies? We already do this with internationally travelling animals by the way. Both of my dogs had to have RFID chips to travel outside the country and for sure to re-enter. With RFIDs doctors would know what medicines you need, your history and allergies as they approach your body with a scanner. It could save your life. With RFIDs, you will be able purchase groceries without going to a till and walk straight into a ballpark without standing in-line for tickets or payment because it is attached to your banking assets. As with Google Maps, with RFIDs, every location and interaction we ever take will be viewed on a computer screen dynamically and logged in a very large database. If RFID 89x28039a2:02 is in the vicinity of 83x2wo09i2:03, it will be logged. RFIDs wouldn't eliminate the need for a physical pat-down though, just us having to wave our passports, boarding passes, identification, credit and debit cards.

New generations of technology give us a superpowers unlike any before it. Unfortunately, we don't always know how to manage a superpower until we abuse it first. Where is the balance between using a superpower and respecting the individual? And what will superpower abuses look like? What will be our personally available recourse if violated? After all, data gets abused very often. One record incorrectly associated to other unlike records, another corrupted or removed. This happens often in daily business operations whether we acknowledge it or not. If this were not the case, we wouldn't need database administrators to write data scripts fixing things we broke at the data level after last night's software upgrade. Let's be honest. Now we have to consider the trade-off. Does technology simplify our security-filled lives on the front-end at the airport and will it get complicated on the back with background checks run on corrupted data records? Or should we avoid the whole drama and simply take enhanced pat-downs from someone who may not be effectively trained and restrained to respect our privacy?

Understandably, this problem is not easy to solve. We can watch or we can get involved and help solve it. But if you choose not to get involved while governments are crafting policy and procedure, then we shouldn't hear you complaining at the airport.

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Security v Freedom: Solution Statement

Even with fictitious math, the difficulty of managing consistent staff behaviors across all national US airports purely due to geographical distribution and staff sizes, lines of security and passengers is very large and challenging. When we have one person or three people, outlining and auditing against a defined process and procedure is starkly more achievable than when we have 9,000 staff distributed across 1,000 airport locations managing 5,000,000 passengers and associative luggage. How do we maintain operational consistency in geographically distributed staff under variable circumstances, audit against standard and evolve the individual and/or larger system in real-time? With people involved, we don't. We need further utilization of unimposing technology to get from where we are to where we need to go -- increased security without imposition or violation of human liberties and sensibilities. We already know how to do it.

In data-centers we leverage retinal, facial and fingerprint scanners, physical assessment, identification exchange, man-traps, cameras and more dependent upon the class and purpose of the installation. In airports we primarily leverage people dependent processes including queues, physical inspection and minimal technical solutions comparatively. We do very well at people movement. However, we are poor at integrating unobtrusive security methodology into people movement. We have options and should explore, implement and evolve them with haste. The problem isn't technologically difficult to solve, it is more likely political.

Consider that an airport building is a fixed perimeter. As such, there are fixed numbers (non-variable) of:

• points of foot, wheeled, winged and rail entry
• points of foot, wheeled, winged and rail exit
• restrooms
• restaurants
• stores
• waiting/resting areas
• methods of transportation
• physical check-in queue points

Rather than using funnels (choke-points) to facilitate security in a central place, our approach needs to employ technology more aggressively in a multi-point, multi-method approach which is natural to people movement and behaviors. Conform the system to the natural behaviors of people. Do not conform people to the requirements of a system, let alone an immature system. For example, we need to move from bottle-neck queues with highly organic physical inspection processes to the elimination of queues and physical inspection staff, as well as, dynamic, technical multi-point recognition systems. No more lines. No more physical touching. No need for Barney as a first-line of security. Barney will handle exceptions, the technology will handle the majority of effort.

Examples of this technology maturity employed include:

• fingerprint and hand scanners
• facial recognition software
• retinal scanners
• voice recognition
• physical form assessors
• hive-mind security robots
• dynamic traffic mapping (history, projected destination)
• open-stack cloud computing

Let's explore a fictitious (but could be very real) example of this technology implemented.

As I drive onto airport property, my car make, model, license tags and VIN are noticed by ground level cameras, validated against a database and it is immediately known that my vehicle entered the premises. The airport database would have received the data for pattern-matching against my own state's driver's license database. My car goes through several points where excellent lighting, whether natural or artificial, illuminates my interior making it easier for cameras on both sides of the road at sitting-passenger/drive height to see and scan my face. Again, this facial recognition data pattern is matched against that which was taken by the Department of Transportation which would include facial features and retinal characteristics. Assuming I had previously attained reservations for airplane travel to another destination, these camera and database checks would be the first on-ground system-utilized notifications telling the airline that I'm potentially arriving in preparation for said reservation.

As I traverse the parking deck, my face is checked multiple times as is my voice in the event I speak to someone at the point of entrance, though it wouldn't be a requirement to stop and/or speak at all. As I then step into an elevator, tram or bus to move to the airport facility where my face is more usably lit, my face is again observed, as are my retinas and my body type to match the face with eyes with a body in the database. And where did they get copies of my voice? Well, of course my voice mail messages with cell phone providers, videos on YouTube, Vimeo and my blog. What we currently don't have is a physical copy of my body type other than that which may be culled from online videos, photography albums like Picasa, Flickr and Shutterfly, so this may need some modification across time of course. It won't be long. The more times I'm in public, the more times my physical form will be scanned and logged against my identifying characteristics record with acceptable variability in form averaged across time. Getting physical form could also be gleaned from security cameras used at malls, convention centers and sporting events. We're already on cameras. It is only a matter of time until such camera viewing centralized into a query-able, pattern-matching database (legally).

Every time I walk through a door, I walk through a scanner at natural pace. I need not stop, raise my arms or spin around. I need only walk. If the scanner senses anything considered out of the ordinary, say metal in the body, external heart monitors and the like, it logs the event and matches the observation up against any known health record details contained in cloud-based and/or private network databases in the health management system du jour. And any time I walk through a door that requires me to open it, the handle scans my hand and fingerprints matching them against known records in the central database. Were I to be in a tram where I hold onto a vertical bar, yet again scanned. Bus? Scanner. For many companies, background checks require finger and hand-prints as part of the screening process. So it isn't a stretch of the imagination to capture them in public and match them against known official records held somewhere else in-country. So far then, I've already had my hands, fingers, face, voice, body and potentially my mode of transportation logged surreptitiously and without being touched by anyone and I've not even entered the airport lobby.

As I enter the airport I encounter a place asking for my baggage. I look into a camera while following directions on a touch-free screen asking me to speak my name, scan my passport or ID, verbally identify the airline reservation number and final destination. Which pieces of required data to be selected on the screen versus spoken versus scanned is a changeable combinatorial such that the process is not easily predictable per passenger. After my identity is validated against already collected data during my traversal into the airport, as well as, data logged for the earlier made reservation and other central database elements, the RFID tags in my bags are updated by the computer and I put them on the conveyor belt to go through a rigorous set of techno-mechanical inspections including scales, laser-based measurement systems, sniffers, dry and wet swabbing and various x-ray and thermal imagery. If a bag is suspect it is treated as an exception and runs through a more intense battery of mechanical-technology inspections on a sub-assembly conveyor belt. If clean, it moves on to the scheduled gate/airplane. If still suspect, it is sent on an isolation path for physical inspection. And when the officer pulls the bag for physical inspection, he/she updates the RFID with their Badge number, assembly line location, time and date stamp which is sent to my smart phone and logged against my travel log history also held in the master database of 'me'. If for some reason the bag is quarantined due to failing the physical inspection (inspection level 3 in this case), my smartphone is notified to head to an office for inquiry.

My trips to coffee shops, magazine racks, restrooms and while sitting in waiting areas are all logged. And since scanners, cameras and imaging equipment are distributed throughout the airport, transportation infrastructure and parking decks/lots, it would not be unreasonable for my identify, reservation and luggage to have been verified fifty to one-hundred times long before I enter the airplane, let alone the scanners above each seat verifying the occupant during and after boarding. This approach could potentially eliminate the need for any people interaction we are ordinarily associated with at check-in and security checkpoints. Why do we need people interaction for this experience? Walk in, drop your bag, get a coffee and wait to board the plane while thousands of machines do the work of verification and validation in the background.

My favorite technological aspect of this inspection system is the swarm or hive-mind security bots that travel freely throughout the airport properties. Equipped with voice analysers, sniffers, thermal imagery, x-ray imagery, temperature, humidity and remote-controllable cameras if and when necessary, these autonomous security bots create the unpredictable variable to the security environment. Where they will be, when and in what numbers is selected by the bots themselves controlled through a military grade encrypted cloud-based network that constantly gathers data on all passing RFIDs and all environments traversed. All data collected is matched against existing people records when possible, otherwise logged against GPS location based historical log files thereafter enabling trend analysis and forecasting. And when one bot identifies a potential exception, other bots in the general vicinity acknowledge and arrive on the scene for secondary and tertiary validation of initial inspection results. This technology eliminates the need for dogs and dog-handlers and covers more physical ground and completes more inspection and data collection effort than any gathering of Barney Fife's could imagine. Organics are no match.

You see, the solution is not choke-points and the archaic use of physical inspectors and inspections as a primary method of security, but rather predictable and non-predictable geographically distributed implementation of technology solutions using multiple methods and layers of inspection. The solution is to use the X, Y and Z axis of the entire airport property to check scores of attributes and characteristics that construct a more intelligible message about each human, bag and animal on the premises. Subjectivity is eliminated. Human variability is eliminated. The need to train hordes of organics is eliminated, let alone the need to audit them against expected procedure and respond to complaints in arrears with innocuous non-liability legal statements thereafter. Humans are the defect in the human inspection process. The solution is technical and needs to be considered, designed, implemented and managed on multiple axis.

This design, the technology and work is achievable and already exists in various industries in various states of implementation. It isn't that we aren't intelligent enough or capable of respecting liberties while providing high-security, it is likely yet political and built upon a lack of knowledge about what exists, could exist and how to use it. So absent an understanding of something new, we tend to default to comfortable areas built upon what we think we already know. We know how to form lines, ask questions, do pat-downs and hope for competence. This approach is a facet of history, but not our future.

Question: If these technology solutions exist and/or could exist, then what are the pros and cons of this solution approach versus staying with the 'get in line, raise your hands and spin around' approach to security?

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Security v Freedom: Logistical Math

To be a solvent nation-state, we need three attributes:

• A defined border,
• A defined people, and
• An ability to interact internationally.

If any country has these three attributes, then it is in the best interest of the country to protect and actively manage all three of them. Else, the country may not continue to exist or simply not be recognized by other solvent countries as an international actor of merit. Both occur in history.

The only way to manage mass population behaviors is through auditable process.

Single points of entry simplify security requirements. They simply don't scale. If we have one security person named Barney Fife, one doorway into a secured area and a single file line, perimeter entry is manageable and our risk is minimized. Even though Barney is dependable, likeable and a good guy, we have a systemic single point of failure. Barney may eventually get tired and become careless or apathetic if he works long hours, receives disrespect from people in queue or isn't paid and cared for well by the employer. We should expect Barney to get sick once or twice a year, have some personal family problems that may distract him from his ordinary attention to detail. And because we only have one point of entry and one person, we anticipate that we'll also never make our flights on-time for standing in queue so long. A single point of entry is more secure than a multi-entry solution. However, it doesn't scale. No matter how many people are in line, Barney can only work as fast as Barney can work. We need a solution that scales with mass population variability.

We like Barney's attention to detail, his work ethic, integrity, respect for others and good disposition. Now we need to scale. How do we get one-hundred or one-thousand people like Barney on our team? To scale this into multiple lines with multiple security personnel, we then need a process that all personnel are trained in, audited against and moulded accordingly. If predictable, repeatable process, then predictable, repeatable results with an expected margin of variability.

Let's explore a fictitious example.

We need to scale this model from one airport to 1,000 airports in the domestic US, each containing one or more queues and multiple personnel. To make the math simple let's assume each airport will have 100 flights per day with 10% of all traffic per airport being international from 10 other international airports. This fictitious math let's us define our problem as follows:

• 1,000 domestic US airports
• 3 security lines per airport
• 3 staff per security line
• 90 domestic US flights per day per airport
• 10 international flights per day per airport

This fictitious math suggests the domestic US enjoys 100,000 flights per day with 10,000 of them being from international airports. The math further suggests we then have 3,000 security lines to manage and 9,000 security staff. Our challenge of predictable, repeatable process, coupled with respect for staff and passengers is now comparatively quite difficult. Barney, though a great employee, isn't enough.

Let's assume, for the purposes of this exercise, that our solution model is primarily built upon the need for human involvement. First, we need predictable, repeatable physically secured people movement solutions that are in place for every airport, every line. One pattern, one implementation and one budget where possible. Modified where building constraints require. Second we require a predictable, repeatable security policy that all people know about, understand and will expect, staff and passengers alike. Thereafter, we need predictable, repeatable technology implementations where possible and then predictable, repeatable physical inspection techniques. Obviously the physical inspection policies and procedures must be transparently auditable within an upper and lower bound of acceptability versus unacceptability and there must be both staff and passenger recourse options in the event of violation or perceived violation. All of this needs to scale to three lines and nine staff per airport for 1,000 airports. And a critical element in this math is to assume there are approximately 50 passengers per airplane suggesting our solution will need to handle approximately 5,000,000 passengers across all airports (50 passengers * 100 flights/day/airport * 1,000 airports). Our fictitious math suggests that we have a scalar problem. We must have a solution that dynamically changes with demand. An elastic process and procedure.

It is reasonable to suggest that our problem is mass people movement. However, this problem has already been solved many times over when considering amusement parks, sport arenas, convention centres, large office buildings, casinos, malls, large city festivals and some tourist destinations. We already know how to move people. While it is a problem requiring constant evolution, moving people isn't our primary problem.

Perhaps our problem is that of luggage inspection. What are the methods and tools employed to perform inspection of luggage and miscellaneous carry-ons? Where possible, we employ technology to aid in the inspection. Where we have no technology, we use people. Where we have exceptions to process, we use people as well. We already have expertise with inspection given mass production manufacturing and domestic/international parcel shipping. We know how to identify, track, inspect and report. The art of luggage or parcel inspection is not our primary problem.

What about people inspection? Again, what are the methods and tools employed to perform inspection of people? We employ technology to inspect people where available, possible or chosen. Where there is no technology, we again rely upon people to inspect people. And exceptions to the process are of course then fully organic as well. A pretty boring conversation, right? Years of military and police work have taught us methods of people observation and inspection. We know how to perform this task. The issue appears to be whether it is necessary, to what extent and whether it is being done respectfully and appropriately and under the right circumstances. If and when we leave context-driven or conditional decisioning up to 9,000 security staff distributed across 1,000 airports inspecting 5,000,000 people, we inevitably get variability. In this case, variability is a petri dish of conflict and confrontation. People inspecting people is a problem and auditing the inspectors against standard implies potential liability for dereliction of duty.

What about audit against process and procedure? With any process expected to yield predictable, repeatable quality, auditability of action and result is a requirement. Quality assurance is designed to prevent problems. Quality control is designed to detect them. On any level and in any context, preventive behaviour is cheaper than detective behaviour which requires rework, modification or additional attention too far downstream. Prevent it from happening versus trying to fix it after broken. This is what we're attempting to do with the implementation of security, however people, that which is being managed, are getting lost in the cracks. How to perform luggage inspections, perform people inspections, exceptions to expected action and result. How to handle verbal conflict, physical conflict and so on. Where there is process and procedure there must also exist audit against standard to manage variability. Years and years of corporate history tells us how difficult it is to define expected human behaviour, measure it, evolve it and particularly how to tie business results to individual and team performance. It isn't binary. It is often subjective, complicated and the auditors are rarely loved. When technological solutions are in place, audit is simple. When people inspecting people methods are put in place, audit is a complicated. Inspection of mass organic behaviour is a problem. Inspection of the inspectors inspecting the people is also a problem.

As with any large system, the more people involved, the higher probability of incongruent action and result. Unquestionably, the weakest link in this security process is people. Particularly, leveraging people to inspect people. The second weakest link in this process is leveraging people to inspect luggage. Exception cases, perhaps. As a primary solution? No. And the third weakest link is the absence of clearly defined auditability and recourse methods within the system. In the name of security, there is no recourse for poorly executed procedures and results, and auditabilty itself and the associative results communicates organizational liability. Governments do not have histories of suggesting "We did it wrong" or "We are doing it wrong". Ladies and Gentlemen, we're doing it wrong. As a result, personal freedoms are perceived to be and/or actually violated and the result is conflict between the checkers and those being checked. The scale of the problem cannot be solved organically. The organic solution to this problem is itself a problem.

Now, how do we solve this?

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Security v Freedom: Problem Statement

After having been out of my native US for nearly two years, with fresh eyes did I travel home via multiple African countries. Along the journey I paid close attention to security practices at the various airports noting continuity and discontinuity in process along the way. Identifying which airports, gates, staff and airlines are less germane to this material than considering a conundrum faced by citizens and non-citizens of the US, as well as, foreign and domestic governments. What is enough security and how do we balance the provision of security with the allowance of personal freedoms and rights? There is no binary answer. This material will not resolve it for you, me, the governments involved or the airports and staff. If you're disappointed, stop reading.

The provision of security in an of itself is relative to a number of uncontrollable elements.

Differing airports in different continents, countries, regions and cities have different opinions of security. What is enough? When have we gone too far? Is it reasonable that the US expects more of everyone than they expect of themselves and each other? Of the entities and people involved in providing security, how are they trained, managed, audited and evolved? These are not difficult conversations. They are exercises in brain-altering tedium.

Let's look at domestic US expectations of airport security as a first-order requirement. No shoes while going through the personal scanner. No liquids from outside other than N(oz.) bottles and clear baggies. No jackets, over-shirts or secondary layers obfuscating physical form. Obviously, no weapons or weapon-like materials. All technology must be out. Everything that you can't wear through the doorway body-scanner must go through the x-ray conveyor belt. Pat-downs, scanning wands, questions and visual scrutiny. Provide your boarding pass. Try not to look suspicious. Sometimes dog checks, swab tests or boot the hardware tests. Argue about anything at all and receive an unsolicited pat-down that is currently challenged by some travellers as intimidation tactic and molestation. Domestic vendors are required to behave accordingly, as are airport staff at all levels. Adherence to process is an inviolable expectation.

Let's look at US expectations placed upon the international community facilitating transport TO the US as a second-order requirement. The communicated expectations delivered by the United States to the international entities is most likely consistent with currently practiced US domestic policy. However, the application is relative to the second-order vendor. For example, "no shoes" in the US is ordinarily translated as "no shoes" to be worn through the scanner. However, "no shoes" is relative to interpretation by international practitioners of security who have different context. Sandals are a good example. To remove or not to remove. In a remote African airport, I didn't need to take off my water sandals (Keen). In the US, of course I did. Is this variability on the part of US international policy or is this variation at the second-order actor level such as international airports and/or security teams? Bags were sometimes viewed, sometimes not. Contents were sometimes assessed, sometimes not. Bells going off with doorway scanners were sometimes acknowledged, sometimes ignored with a simple explanation without verification.

If US international policy variability explains the differences in the security practices of international actors, then this oscillation suggests it is easier to breach US security from afar than domestically. Furthermore, conditionally discontiguous US policy is not successfully manageable with any realm of predictability and communicates mixed messages to actor entities and individuals. We all know that personal interpretation of IF-THEN decisions is often relative to the person. So it is with actor entities. And in terms of predictable, repeatable results it is not in the best interest of the US to have conditional security policy. It must be the same expectation, message and method domestically and internationally to glean same results. A next question through may be, while the US can request it, can it be enforced usefully on non-US soil?

If individual airport or airport personnel variability explains the differences in security practices, how are security behaviors communicated, taught, regulated, audited and evolved across all airports serving US interests? Other countries do not share all US values. How do we instill continuity internationally to people who don't care about the same things? If one person comes to work in a bad mood and doesn't care about the job, on top of not caring about US security expectations, there is nothing the US can do about it. Frankly, in some countries, people would like to see American planes and assets blown up. How does one regulate responsibility on foreign soil predictably? While incentive per actor may be relative, implementation of security policy must not be so. As a result, along with incentive must come the right for policy, procedure and training definition, as well as, controls, audit and change mechanisms. Admittedly, second-order actors in any situation are always more challenging to solicit behavior and result consistent with first-order expectations. It is a fact. The US is forced to accept that second-order actors, though incentives, regulations and expectations are clearly communicated, represent a second-level of security only and must be complimented and/or supplemented as perceived necessary across time.

This then gives the US two levels of security screening for entry into the United States. Level 01 provided at second-order actors internationally. Less than the US has implemented, though important. And Level 00 provided by the United States itself on home ground at international points of entry. These are only two levels of dragnets in the larger system employed to catch potential threats to US security. The challenges of course include applying common sense, non-fear-based solutions that do not violate personal freedoms in the name of security, as well as, managing the large-system flow of human traffic and process by employing non-intrusive, efficient solutions. Right now, US security policy complexity and demands exceed current technology solution accessibility and employment. Resultantly, stop-gap implementations are very organically focused (security guards) which creates personal intrusion, bottle-necked, expensive wait (waste) states in the supply/delivery chain. In other words, the US has implemented a very complex security paradigm that it cannot manage efficiently in any other manner than to be highly waste-ridden which translates to high-expenditures, high frustrations and high probabilities of confrontation between those employed to do work, those providing products and services, and those paying to get from point A to point B.

Benjamin Franklin is documented as saying, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." He is also documented as saying, "Where liberty is, there is my country."

Now, how is the US going to eliminate, mitigate and manage risk to borders and assets while being fiscally responsible and respecting the constitutional rights of domestic and international citizenry? To explore possibilities, we'll look at some logistical math influencing the process complexity of implementing strict security policies.

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