Early one morning in late August, a mystery woman in a long, dark coat, left a security screening line in Denver International Airport. Ask to enter the secondary screening line and apparently impatient at the delay, she simply unlatched the elastic barrier, picked up her belongings from the carry-on screening conveyor, and headed for the train to her concourse. Notified by the next passenger in line, screeners belatedly called a security breach. DIA, crammed with business travelers and summer vacationers, was effectively shut down for the remainder of the morning. All 3 concourses were cleared, 146 flights were delayed or cancelled, 15,000 passengers were re-screened, and an industry analyst estimated that United alone lost between $5 and $6 million. Harder to calculate are the losses to individual passengers from missed meetings, cancelled hotel and car reservations, disrupted vacation, missed work time, and inability to meet family obligations.
It's an egregious understatement to say the cost of the mystery woman incident was huge! Was it worth it? With the memory of September 11th seared in our hearts, most of us automatically reply, "Yes.". "If it foiled a terrorist act," we think, "or even served as a deterrent, then . . .ok."
"If it saved one life," we say. We're not very comfortable putting monetary value on human life. Preferring to agree that life is priceless, we guiltily silence thoughts about money or inconvenience when measures to increase public safety are being considered. But we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves. The reality is, we do ? and because of scarcity, we must ? make judgments all the time that involve trade-offs of our own and others' safety. As a simple example, the environmentalist who chooses to buy a fuel-efficient compact instead of a gas-guzzler SUV is implicitly trading human safety for cleaner air. Does that mean she values human life at the $10,000 difference in the cars' price tags? Of course not! It means she's evaluated the benefits of the extra safety provided by the larger car and decided it's not worth the extra cost - be it pollution, gasoline usage, or money from her bank account. And perhaps she'll express his concern for safety in other ways, making sure her kids' seat belts are buckled, watching her speed, leaving her cell phone in her brief case while driving.
The same is true of airport security. We have no choice but to consider the question of how much more we're willing to spend, and whether the levels of safety we achieve are worth the additional cost.
In the wake the 9/11 attack, Americans understandably demanded increased protection from airline terror.
Government responded, federalizing airport security for the next few years, providing funding, and mandating improvements in personnel, procedures, and equipment. And there is more to come. Luggage screening machines, costing $200 million at some airports, are to be in place and operating by year's end.
Everyday Americans responded. Although the grumbling has recently become louder, we have willingly participated in the restriction of freedom and reduction of privacy that are the cost of heightened security. The stories of body searches, arbitrary delay and detention, and humiliating or pointless demands by empowered screeners bring more resigned sighs than outrage. Our patience and compliance indicate that we have made the cost/benefit analysis and determined the trade-off worthwhile.
We've answered the question for now, but it's not going to go away. We will have to ask and answer it over and over again. Despite the millions spent to beef up security, there are security lapses and long delays like that caused by the mystery woman in Denver. Will the next round of spending solve the problem? Realistically, we must be prepared to continually confront the question of whether the benefits of the airport security measures we have taken and will take are worth the cost.
How much security is the right amount? A glib economist would dismiss the question as an easy one: We should add security as long as the additional benefit of the increase in security is greater than the additional cost. A thoughtful economist knows that, as the saying goes, "the devil is in the details." Measuring the value and calculating the cost of each additional increment of security is a daunting task, with a multitude of dimensions - from the financial viability of airlines, to the accessibility of air travel for individuals, to the level of unrest and anxiety in our society. Nonetheless, it's a task we must undertake if we are to reach a national consensus on just how much security we want and how much restriction of freedom we are willing to tolerate.
We cannot, and probably should not, remove emotion from our
discussion; the magnitude of human loss suffered at the Trade
Center defies dismissal. But we can channel our compassion
by using the economist's tool of cost/ benefit analysis to
shape our dialogue.
Identifying and valuing the costs and benefits of increased
airport security is no easy task, in part because some things,
like freedom and security, defy quantification in dollars
and cents. Others costs frustrate measurement because they
exist simultaneously on a multitude of levels, and there may
be no clear correspondence between costs and benefits to different
individuals and costs and benefits to the society as a whole.
Despite the difficulties, we can't avoid the task. At some
point we must decide when enough airport security measures
are in place.
Teacher notes
Directions: Copy the above overview as a handout or read aloud to students. Distribute copies of the articles linked below. You may wish to have each student read all 3 articles or you may divide the class into 3 groups and assign one article to each group. Assign the readings for homework or at the beginning of class. The questions are designed to facilitate a class discussion rather than for individual written answers.
Read the Washington Post article, "A Dramatically Different Way to Travel."
- Discussion Questions:
List the increased air travel security measures mentioned in the article.
(federal security personnel, guns in cockpits, reinforced cockpit doors, flight attendant training, increased airport screening)
- Using the board or overhead, ask students to design a
chart that shows the monetary and non-monetary costs and
benefits of each of the measures, according to the people
interviewed in the article.
Benefits Costs Measure Taken Monetary Not Monetary Monetary Not Monetary Federal Screeners Increased Income Sense of well-being, better trained,
Passengers feel safer
Government spending on salaries and training (amount could be calculated) Increased government control of economy,
Passengers inconvenienced
Guns in cockpits Etc.
- What conclusions do you reach, if any, as you look at
the costs and benefits of each of the measures you listed?
(Various. The purpose of the chart is for students to see the various costs and benefits displayed. For some, they will be able to attach dollar values, from information in the articles. For others, they will just be able to make comparisons; as in "this is a large benefit for a one-time cost.
- Add to the list any upcoming security measures mentioned in the article. (luggage screening) Identify the anticipated costs and benefits. What conclusions do you reach about whether this security measure should be taken? (Various. See question 3.)
Read the report of the CNN survey: "Americans
Boosters of Airport Security"
- What does the survey tell you about the value
the American public places on the security measures (individually
or altogether) you listed in your chart?
(The survey suggests that the American public values the security measures highly and believes that they are getting great benefit.)
- Do you think the people responding to the survey were
substantially different from or similar to the people interviewed
in the Washington Post article? Does it matter?
(We don't know, and it would be interesting to know how frequently the people in the CNN survey travel. We could then compare their responses to the frequent travelers in the Washington Post article.)
Read the Seattle Times article: "Security Rules Strain Airport Budgets."
- How would it be possible to argue that what is given
up (the cost) for increased terrorist screening security
at Los Angeles International Airport is safety?
(The article indicates that the airport had to reduce its budget for preventing runway accidents in order to meet the federal security screening requirements. It would be interesting to compare the history of numbers of people injured in runway accidents in a particular past time period to the number of people injured or killed in terrorist plan crashes over the same time period. While it's important for students to see that these numbers can change drastically depending on the time period we choose for comparison, it does help them see the picture of risk - although certainly their evaluation of the risk will be guided by personal values.)
- Tomographic technology is used in medicine and airport
security. Devise an objective cost/benefit measurement that
would allow us to determine where it should
be best used.
(The comparison would be an estimate of the number of lives saved by early detection of diseases vs. the number of lives saved by foiling terrorist plots. While these kinds of statistical projections, based on past occurrences and trends, are made all the time, they are certainly not infallible predictors. For example, we may never know about a terrorist plot that didn't happen because of airport screening. However, such projections can be useful in helping us to assess risk. Note: It's important that students acknowledge that just not building a luggage scanner doesn't automatically mean that a medical scanner would be built.)
- From your chart and your experience, rank the changes
in airport security from best to worst in terms of the amount
of benefit we have reaped for the cost we bear. Which measures
do you believe satisfy the economic demand that additional
benefits outweigh additional costs? What evidence would
you offer to support your belief? For which measures do
you believe the costs outweigh the benefits? Explain.
(This question asks students to look at the issue of diminishing benefits. They should begin to formulate questions like: Is reinforcing cockpit doors more likely to foil an attack than wand searching? Is it beneficial enough to justify the one-time cost? Is wand-searching at the boarding point beneficial enough to justify the ongoing cost? How would we decide?)
- Are measures that make passengers feel better worthwhile,
even if they can't be shown to actually deter terrorist
incidents?
(Students will answer in a variety of ways, but certainly they should understand that the airlines have an interest in passengers feeling better. Passengers who don't feel safe are less likely to fly. Is there a social benefit in people feeling safer?)
- Many concerns seem to center not on the increased security
itself, but that it doesn't seem to be done well. If the
security is going to be costly and not work very well, would
we be better off to have none and spend the money to improve
health and safety in some other way? Another way to ask
this is: Would we be worse off if we had made no changes
in airport security?
(One of the problems with increased security seems to be a sense on the part of many while screeners are wasting time searching old ladies and babies, real threats will slip through. Critics of government waste decry federal security measures as another government program that will grow and become more costly. Others say the current problems of airport security will be fixed by spending more money)
| Increased Airport Security | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costs | Benefits | |||
| Measure Taken | Monetary | Not Monetary | Monetary | Not Monetary |
| Federal Security Personnel | Federal employees are costing more, which will result in higher airfares or higher taxes | Change over has been slow. The federal government takes over a private enterprise. Gov. budget increases. | If people feel safer then increased air travel | Passengers feel better about having the Federal Gov. in charge of screening |
| Luggage Scanners | Los Angles--$120 million Atlanta--$50-$86 million St. Louis--$24 million Dallas--$195 million |
Must give up lobby space in airports, may cause more
crowding and longer lines. Longer wait to screen bags. Loss of individual freedom. |
Perhaps increase in number of passengers as people feel safer | A higher confidence level that there are no explosives in luggage. |
| Guns in cockpits | Cost of increased training for pilots and flight crews in handling firearms. | Danger of having guns on every plane for hijackers to get control of. | Safer feeling results in more airline travelers | Level of confidence that crew can defend against hijackers |
| Increased number of Security personnel | Increased payroll that results in increased air fare or increased taxes. Travelers give up on traveling because of long lines. | Longer lines and increased number of random searches.
Loss of travelers' freedom. Increase in individual stress levels. |
Safer feeling results in more airline travelers. Fewer security lapses saves airlines money. | Decreased chance of security lapses such as happened at Denver airport. |
| Other Issues | ||||