Research Catalog

Title

Skating on stilts : why we aren't stopping tomorrow's terrorism / Stewart A. Baker.

Author

Baker, Stewart A. (Stewart Abercrombie), 1947-

Publication

Stanford, Calif. : Hoover Institution Press, c2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xi, 370 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

This memoir, from the former assistant secretary for policy of the Department of Homeland Security, describes the agency s post-9/11 strategy to rebuild border security on a foundation of better information about travelers, and the bitter resistance the strategy met from privacy campaigners in the United States and Europe. He shows how a left-right privacy coalition helped set the stage for the Christmas Day bombing. Looking to the future, he examines two new technologies that carry within them the seeds of disasters more damaging than 9/11. As with border security, we can avoid catastrophe by changing our current course a few degrees, building prudent new security measures around information networks and biotechnology. But that course faces stiff resistance from the same groups that fought new security measures after 9/11. He argues that privacy campaigners should abandon their stance of opposing all new government uses of technology. Instead of fighting the inevitable in the name of privacy, we should embrace new technologies that offer new ways to protect citizens from abuse.

Series Statement

Hoover Institution Press publication ; no. 591

Uniform Title

Hoover Institution Press publication 591.

Subject

• Terrorism > United States > Prevention
• Bioterrorism > United States > Prevention
• Cyberterrorism > United States > Prevention
• International relations and terrorism > United States
• United States > Foreign relations

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 343-352) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Foreword / Peter Berkowitz -- pt. 1. THE ROAD TO 9/11. Introduction : The gift -- Skating on stilts -- Atta's soldier -- To the wall -- Never agian -- pt. 2. FLIGHT AND FACTS. Europe picks a privacy fight -- To the brink -- Al Qaeda's frequent traveler program -- Privacy victims in the air -- pt. 3. TOMORROW'S TERRORISM. Moore's outlaws -- Big Brother's revenge -- Invested in insecurity -- Smallpox in the garage -- pt. 4. THE PRIVACY PROBLEM. What's wrong with privacy? -- Privacy for the real world.

ISBN

• 9780817911546 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 9780817911560 (e-book)

LCCN

^^2010020763

OCLC

• 607977844
• SCSB-12776382

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library