The SEC Is Tilting At Windmills

According to this and many other articles, including a video published by Mississippi State University for Davis Wade Stadium in 2018, the SEC is requiring all member schools to install metal detectors outside football stadiums by 2020.

The cost at Bryant-Denny Stadium alone is nearly $1,000,000 just for equipment.  The additional manpower required to operate the machines – and deal with fans frustrated by longer lines – is not stated.

This will prove to be nothing more than wasted time and money in an elaborate example of security theater.  Schools have shown they cannot keep alcohol out of stadiums.  Stopping or deterring a determined attacker with metal detectors operated by part-time security guards is a pipe dream.  The SEC is tilting at windmills at the fan’s expense at a time when college football attendance continues to drop.  There are things that can be done to improve security but clear bags and metal detectors are not where the attention should be focused. Keeping out lawful concealed carriers should be low on the SEC’s list of priorities.

I am going to liberally quote Schneier on Security‘s take on this issue:

Touted as a counterterrorism measure, they’re nothing of the sort. They’re pure security theater: They look good without doing anything to make us safer. We’re stuck with them because of a combination of buck passing, CYA thinking, and fear.

As a security measure, the new devices are laughable. The ballpark metal detectors are much more lax than the ones at an airport checkpoint. They aren’t very sensitive — people with phones and keys in their pockets are sailing through — and there are no X-ray machines. Bags get the same cursory search they’ve gotten for years. And fans wanting to avoid the detectors can opt for a “light pat-down search” instead.

There’s no evidence that this new measure makes anyone safer. A halfway competent ticketholder would have no trouble sneaking a gun into the stadium. For that matter, a bomb exploded at a crowded checkpoint would be no less deadly than one exploded in the stands. These measures will, at best, be effective at stopping the random baseball fan who’s carrying a gun or knife into the stadium. That may be a good idea, but unless there’s been a recent spate of fan shootings and stabbings at baseball games — and there hasn’t — this is a whole lot of time and money being spent to combat an imaginary threat.

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In reality, this is CYA security, and it’s pervasive in post-9/11 America. It no longer matters if a security measure makes sense, if it’s cost-effective or if it mitigates any actual threats. All that matters is that you took the threat seriously, so if something happens you won’t be blamed for inaction. It’s security, all right — security for the careers of those in charge.

 

 

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