Low Tech Security May Be Best

Eye to Eye

Wouldn’t you know it! Once again Israel comes up with a break-thru technology! Forget about the cell phone, the computer, and the advances in medical treatments. What is of interest to us right now is much more pressing—airport security. Since the attempt to blow up the Christmas day flight and the subsequent political finger pointing we have been reminded that it only takes one mistake to bring catastrophe. The security scrutiny that has followed has been even more discouraging because the more we look the more flaws we find in the system that we thought was keeping us safe. Even the “no-fly list” seems to work too slowly as evidenced this past week when an individual on the list (this time because of illness) boarded a plane with no problem.
With all this renewed concern for airport safety one of the many reports that I heard stayed in my mind and actually contains a lesson for all of us. One reporter wonders why the obvious flaws in our way of doing things are not found in Israeli security efforts. When asked why El Al has such a good security record an Israeli spokesman gave a very simple answer. He said that Israeli security agents do one thing that Americans omit- when people come to the gate and security inspection the Israeli agents make sure to look them in the eye to “see” their intent.
Reflecting on this simple method the reporter noted that on his last flight the TSA agent looked at his belongings, looked at his documents (to the extreme of examining his driver’s license with a jeweler’s loop,) and searched his carry-on. The TSA agent never looked at him though- he was focused on the property and never looked at the person. In retrospect we see how useless this approach can be- remember all the murderers of 911 had valid documents. Sometimes you do need to look at the person!
It seems strange to us to depend on such a low-tech method. We spend millions of dollars to build machines that do more and more sophisticated imaging. Perhaps you have heard about the new full body X-ray that literally produces a picture of you as if you were naked- while an image of that resolution can certainly guard against a lot of threats it still can’t see into the eyes of a terrorist. I guess we should be reminded that no matter how amazing the machines are that we build, they pale in comparison to the human mind that created them. That’s a very good lesson to remember—in this age of e-mail, text messages, twitter, blogs, and more there is still nothing that tells you more about what a person really means that the tone of their voice. The same is true of the human eyes—they are still the portals to the soul. Who is your friend and who is your enemy? You need to look eye to eye to be really sure. Low-tech but reliable!