The food we eatSchneier: no need to worry about terrorists poisoning food
Security maven Bruce Schneier says that fears of food-based bioterrorism are exaggerated: The quantities involved for mass poisonings are too great, the nature of the food supply too vast, and the details of any plot too complicated and unpredictable to be a real threat
Bruce Schneier is what you would call a security maven, but he is also a security skeptic, arguing that many of the terrorism-related fears we have are exaggerated and that, hence, many of the preventive measures we take are either unnecessary, ineffective, or both.
In an op-ed piece in yesterday’s Guardian, Schneier says that we should not poison our minds with fears of bioterrorism:
What is discussed in terrorist training manuals, and what the CIA is worried about, is the use of contaminated food in targeted assassinations. The quantities involved for mass poisonings are too great, the nature of the food supply too vast and the details of any plot too complicated and unpredictable to be a real threat. That becomes crystal clear as you read the details of the different incidents: it’s hard to kill one person, and very hard to kill dozens. Hundreds, thousands: it’s just not going to happen any time soon. The fear of bioterror is much greater, and the panic from any bioterror scare will injure more people, than bioterrorism itself.
Schneier says that if we are going to fear something, we should fear accidental contaminations of the food supply like recent peanut salmonella contaminations in the United States. Even then, he says, companies have systems to catch these types of contaminations, which also work to catch any malicious contamination.
