Top Security Expert: Treating EVERYONE Like a Potential Terrorist Weakens Our Ability to Protect America

Bruce Schneier is an internationally-recognized security expert who regularly writes for CNN, Wired and other publications. Schneier’s blog was just listed by Time as one of the 25 best blogs in the world. Schneier trounced the former head of the TSA (87% to 13%) in a recent debate on airport security hosted by the Economist.

Washington’s Blog asked Schneier 3 questions by email.

[Q] Many top experts (including you) have said that mass surveillance on Americans is harmful to national security, as it makes the haystack too big to search meaningfully for bad guys.

As a layperson, it seems to me that the same is true with many of our counter-terrorism efforts since 9/11.

[A] Yes.

[Q] For example, Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz calculates that the U.S. will end up spending $3-5 trillion dollars in the Iraq war [a Brown University study actually concluded that the Iraq war could end up costing $6 trillion dollars]. Yet the 9/11 Commission found that Iraq had no connection to 9/11.

[A] Right.

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