This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, January 14th, 2009.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Security Theater is the term coined by Bruce Schneider to refer to the procedures we go through that enhance our feeling of security

while not improving security at all.

Shnier argues that our own human psychology plays a role in convincing us that rare threats are common, common threats

are rare.

We spoke at the Cato Institute's Counterterrorism Conference held Monday and Tuesday. How should the public think about trying to balance the trade-offs associated with security

that is reducing some risks at the expense of potentially reducing others, it doesn't seem like we can really

expect the public to delve down to understand what the real trade-offs are there or can we?

Well, the public really does do it all the time.

When they get in a car and drive to work, they're balancing the risks of the convenience

in a car accident.

When they buy another lock for their door because the crime rate in the neighborhood

goes up. They're balancing the risks of purchasing the lock with reducing their risk.

People are actually very fluent in managing risks in domains they understand.

We also know how to get expertise.

If we're feeling sick, we go to a doctor.

And the doctor will balance the risks for us and

because we trust the doctor we'll either listen to what they do or maybe we don't

trust a doctor we'll go on the internet and learn some things and maybe come to a different conclusion.

So when it matters to us viscerally, we balance these risks.

We do it all the time, we don't even notice it.

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