Security Theatre Indefinitely Closed
So It Turns Out, #21
Hi,
I’ll be honest, this is going to be a different one. I’m going to react to the awful week we had — so if you’re someone who just doesn’t want to read about that yet, I respect it. But I hope to share some thoughts that are useful, and worth your time.
And if you just want the animal photos and videos, CTRL+F for “SHOW ME THE FLUFFY BOYYEHS” and you can jump down to there. Truly, all good.
The dignity and integrity of the United States
This week’s violent insurrection was nothing less than an attempt to overturn the results of a lawful election. All those involved — from the lowest vandal to the President of the United States — should be punished to the fullest extent of the law (And, even if pardoned, should be shunned by all those who love freedom).
These people thought that they could, essentially, show up and mob their way into a fucking siege of our Capitol and violent revolution. Here are the words of just some Random Protestor, not even one of the neo-Nazis:
(Though I prefer the remix.)
Their goal — by their own words — was to prevent the lawful electoral process and to cause “revolution,” “civil war,” and the murder of the Republican Vice President, the Democratic Speaker of the House, and of all those who took oaths on their honor (and, where consonant with their beliefs, to G-d), to:
Support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.
This was nothing less an effort to end the American experiment and replace it with rule of the fist.
And their backers, today, are now attempting to fucking lie about the strategy they willfully embraced, and say that they never meant to encourage this violence, and that even though the insurrectionists attacked after attended a rally where the sitting and outgoing President encouraged them to be “wild” and the President’s attorney urged “Trial by Combat,” all of the violence was done somehow by antifa. “Who are you going to believe, me, or your lying eyes?”
But you knew all of this already. So let’s not belabor it.
Security theatre indefinitely closed
It is poorly understood that, at heart, most security measures are about making specific bad things harder, not making every bad thing impossible. Mature security practitioners analyze what types of threats they’re even going to try to prevent and not prevent, build layered defenses with crumple zones (trading time, mass, and distance for security), segment their defenses to limit the “blast radius” of any breach, and assume that stupid shit will happen and plan for it.
As a worked example, think of your house and what would happen if someone tried to break in (heaven forfend). You probably have a plan to prevent burglaries, not an assault by a brigade of T-72 tanks. You probably have multiple locks on your door, or even multiple layered doors; you could retreat to your bedroom and call the police. Even if someone broke in and stole everything in the house, much of your wealth just isn’t available at home, it’s in a bank. And if you forgot to lock the door and someone just waltzed in and grabbed your TV, you probably have insurance.
In other words, in any security incident — even if everything goes right and no one is hurt — things will fail.
I need you to understand that this is not what happened this week.
I held off on finalizing this piece for days — drafted the day after the attack — because I just wasn’t sure enough at the time about that claim, as more data came out. Now I’m confident enough to say this: if a very few things had gone differently, we would have seen the televised deaths of legislators at the hands of a mob that came, we now know, armed with handguns, rifles, pipe bombs, molotov cocktails, and nooses.
Over in Earth-2, the FBI Hostage Rescue Team had to storm the building and some legislators get shot as they breach the chambers. On Earth-3, we’re electing a new Speaker or Senate Majority Leader, or trying to replace a Vice President. And over in Earth-4, we’re facing a legitimacy crisis because everyone’s dead.
As the Washington Post has reported, we avoided a crowd of rioters entering the Senate floor by literal seconds. Set aside the fact that the US Capitol Police were woefully undermanned that day, for reasons that remain mysterious. Set aside that they (aside from one death) refused to engage the insurrectionists with deadly force even when those insurrectionists were bludgeoning a cop to death, and attempting to crush another to death. Set aside that DoD refused to call out the National Guard for hours. That’s about how you use the defenses you have, not whether or not you have the right defenses.
This is, frankly, pretty shocking, because everyone in DC thought that the Capitol Police were really, really, really ready for this:
Yet here’s what seems to be true: there was no internal security plan for the Capitol being overrun other than evacuation. Let’s take it in turn:
Analyze threats: There was little preparation for this threat — and indeed, willful misrepresentation by the Capitol Police about their preparations. While it is important to note that the US Government has a lot of restrictions on gathering information on citizens and their protest plans, the violent nature of the mob and its plans was widely and publicly reported and legally available to the USCP. Heck, I made plans for it being violent based on what I saw on Twitter. It seems, however, that the USCP was not concerned, and actively dismissed the concerns of those who told it to be.
White supremacy was out of scope, I guess.
Build layered protections: Once the bad guys got past the front door, it appears there were very few ways to stop folks that did not depend on “we have a Capitol Police officer there to tell you ‘no.’” The literal floor of the House of Representatives was defended by six guys with Glocks, a heavy piece of furniture dragged in front of a door, and some Congresspeople with military, security, or MMA (really!) training. There was no internal security plan for the offices of the Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader being overrun beyond “pile furniture in front of the doors.” There were very few internal barriers, and the ones we had were quickly broken. I understand that there are architectural concerns that mean you want to keep the pretty doors, but how do you not, for example, have the same roll-down steel gate technology that we consider appropriate for your average Wal-Mart shopping center entrance?
Segment defenses: There was no graceful degradation of the perimeter — once the barricades failed and insurrectionist mob was inside, they got pretty darn far inside the building. We now know that an officer, Eugene Goodman, successfully baited at least one racist insurrectionist group away from the Senate, ensuring that by just seconds the unsecured Senate doors were locked in time. In other locations, officers fought valiantly to prevent the mob from entering a major access routes resulting in severe injuries to at least one officer, and the death of another, Brian Sicknick.
Stupid shit happens: This was not about stupid shit happening, though plenty of it did, ranging from communications failures to a weirdo with horns on his head; this was a fucking failure of planning and leadership. We now know that the head of the Capitol Police had no plan for retaking the Congress and limited to no communications with his boss, the Speaker of the House, or even his forces on the ground.
Even worse, let me ask you a simple question: Who is in charge? Forget the chaos of the day, who is in charge NOW? If this was any other event in US history like this, wouldn’t you expect to see the head of the FBI or the Attorney General on TV constantly? We’ve had a few press briefings by the US Attorney as charges come out, and a few by the DC Metropolitan Police Department, and even some by subordinates in the Capitol Police; but this is simply NOTHING like what you saw after the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, or the attack in San Bernardino, or any one of dozens of other major domestic terror attacks. Where is everyone, and who is in charge?
In other words, all of the beliefs we had that Congress was safe, that our rituals of electoral transition were sacrosanct, turn out to be purely security theatre, overwhelmed by a mob. It was all security theatre, and stage fight training doesn’t stand up to people playing for keeps.
In the midst of all of this, though, some things remain. As the cop cars screamed outside my window, rushing to the Capitol, the US Postal Service still delivered the fucking mail. Journalists ably reported on the disaster, even as no one in power could tell us what was going on. The Senate staff, led by Assistant Parliamentarian Leigh Hildebrand, saved the Electoral College Ballots. And the dignity and integrity of the United States — just barely — survived.
OK, NOW SHOW ME THE FLUFFY BOYYEHS
May this cat join your Sunday nap:
May this capybara continue to be inedible:
May these joeys join your brunch:
May this birb bless your timeline:
May this scaly one teach you sweet offroad quadcycle tricks:
May these sea shanties soothe your journey:
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G-d bless you, G-d bless your families, and G-d bless all those who protect the dignity and integrity of the United States.
Disclosures:
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