Wednesday, 11 May 2011

♪♫ Dan Bull - Stupid Injunction

How Wasteful is Spending on Homeland Security?

The cumulative increase in expenditures on US domestic homeland security over the decade since 9/11 exceeds one trillion dollars. It is clearly time to examine these massive expenditures applying risk assessment and cost-benefit approaches that have been standard for decades. Thus far, officials do not seem to have done so and have engaged in various forms of probability neglect by focusing on worst case scenarios; adding, rather than multiplying, the probabilities; assessing relative, rather than absolute, risk; and inflating terrorist capacities and the importance of potential terrorist targets. We find that enhanced expenditures have been excessive: to be deemed cost-effective in analyses that substantially bias the consideration toward the opposite conclusion, they would have to deter, prevent, foil, or protect against 1,667 otherwise successful Times-Square type attacks per year, or more than four per day. Although there are emotional and political pressures on the terrorism issue, this does not relieve politicians and bureaucrats of the fundamental responsibility of informing the public of the limited risk that terrorism presents and of seeking to expend funds wisely. Moreover, political concerns may be over-wrought: restrained reaction has often proved to be entirely acceptable politically.

From a new paper (pdf) by John Mueller and Mark Stewart. Their book on this subject is forthcoming.
Via

Questions for Glenn Greenwald:

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Saudi Arabia flogs orphan girls

Six orphan girls aged between 12 and 18 have been flogged in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of attacking the head of their orphanage, an official said.
The girls received 10 lashes each at a women's prison in Medina, Islam's second holiest city.
"The order against the six orphans is a legitimate court order," Mohammed al-Awadh, the public relations manager at the ministry of social affairs, told Reuters. "The ministry does not have the right to interfere in a court order."
He gave no details of the ruling but the Arabic-language newspaper Okaz said the girls had been convicted of "acts of mischief" and attacking the director of the orphanage.
The girls defended their actions, saying they were harassed by the director, Okaz reported.
International human rights groups have criticised the Saudi justice system for applying corporal punishment for petty crimes, as well as limb amputations for thieves and beheadings for murderers under its strict interpretation of Islamic law.
Saudi officials say the practice is widely approved by Saudi society and is a deterrent to crime.
In January 2010 a teenage girl was sentenced to 90 lashes and two months in prison for hitting her school principal on the head with a cup when she took away her mobile phone.
Awadh said the ministry would continue to care for the girls after the floggings were carried out.
"What it will do is rehabilitate and take care of the girls' social wellbeing, which is part of its duties and responsibilities."
@'The Guardian'