The Illusion of Safety II

There is a banner ad I saw that says “Would You Feel Safe With McCain as President.” Then it has a yes and a no button and something about enter to win $50 grand. While this may be linked to some opinion poll it is most likely a way to get your personal info into a database and then sell it around the net. But. They asked the question so let’s answer it here.

No. And neither should you.

The American people have got to stop masturbating. Listening to politicians and feeling safe is no different than feeling love while watching porn. Either way you’re still responsible for your own security and companionship. Katie Morgan and Jenna Jameson aren’t your girlfriends and John McCain and Barack Obama aren’t your bodyguards.

Someone on the radio said recently that it was sad that people don’t feel safe anymore because of all the changes that have happened since 2001. I disagree. People who feel safe eventually become complacent, opening themselves up to danger. But let’s leave personal 1 on 1 threats (our biggest danger) aside and focus on terrorism from outside the country. Am I confident that John McCain, Barack Obama or any other president will send in the troops the instant it becomes necessary, to defend the country against the terrorists? No. Am I confident that the alphabet agencies will identify and neutralize terrorists so they are unable to attack again? No. You lost whatever trust I had in you. I’m not going to forgive the incompetence and I am not going to trust you to protect the country now. My response to protestations of assurance is “whatever.”

As far as personal security is concerned, as I’ve written before, I’m going to watch my own back and not give the responsibility for my protection to anyone.

Break-in Averted

We left work a little late and as we were walking out of the building someone who was bent over one of the cars turned abruptly and walked straight away from us out of the parking lot without looking back. It would appear that my boss and I prevented a car from being broken into. The vehicle didn’t appear to have an alarm and perhaps looked like easier pickings. Alarms are not any kind of guarantee. A lot of people who are broken into with alarms usually say, “I don’t know how it happened. I have an alarm.” They’re not realizing that part of the purpose of a vehicle alarm is to make breaking in inconvenient enough that the criminal moves on to something else. The last I saw the guy was headed towards the freeway. He may come skulking around later but that’s not something we can worry about. Maybe if he sees that people are watching he’ll think better about trying to violate the cars there.

More About Safety

This is what I mean about people wanting to feel safe vs. people taking responsibility for themselves.

This is an encounter someone had about twenty years ago with my Aunt Jessie. Aunt Jessie was my grandmother’s aunt. She lived to be about 96. She wasn’t a very tall lady. She was about 4′9″but wherever she was she commanded respect, as one should having logged that many years. When I knew her she lived in Houston. She died in the summer of 1989 and was still active up until a few months before her death.

A couple of years earlier she was out painting her house, which was no small feat for a nonagenarian. There were some kids in the alley, and from where she was they probably sounded like they were playing. That was until one climbed the fence and came at her with a stick. He swung the stick down to hit her and it broke across her shoulder. Now Aunt Jessie had dipped snuff out of steel-lid jars and chewed plug tobacco since before WWI. All those years had made her teeth just a little bit brown. She stood her ground, glared at this kid, and through clenched brownish teeth said, “You little son of a bitch!”

“…and child, his little ass flew!” was how she described it to my mom. She didn’t see anything after that but elbows and heels as that little bastard made his way back up over the fence into the alley.

She stood her ground against a coward…a coward who had nothing other than perhaps his stature backing him up. I don’t know whether or not she felt “safe.” I only know she was dealing with a bully and wasn’t having any of his sh*t. Whether he could have beat her up or not doesn’t matter. A person standing their ground with nothing but bare hands can strike fear into hearts. This isn’t about arming or not arming oneself with guns or knives or whatever. It’s about power. The only power this child had over my aunt was a perception of power he was expecting her to give him. She didn’t.

The illusion of safety

A person sitting on a pallet of gold in the Fort Knox vault is safe but the rent is more than most people can afford.

• You’re either aware or you’re not aware.
• You’re either prepared or you’re not prepared.
• You’re either responsible or you’re not responsible.
• You’re either trained or you’re not trained.

These are the things one must be doing every day, in every situation, to best ensure freedom from harm. “Safe” and “Secure” are overused and overly misunderstood. Safety, as it is pitched about in the media and the community conversations is an illusion. It’s an abstraction. It does not exist.

We want to be free to move about public venues playing with our personal electronics and not be physically threatened. We think that the existence of the police or other security guarantees that. And so people go about their yakking, head bopping, snapshooting, texting, getting cash from the ATM, eating lives not paying attention very far beyond their “personal space.” Then when someone grabs their toys and runs they stand around wondering what just happened. Or something worse befalls them which I won’t go into. These more serious events are well depicted on CSI and Law and Order.

Back in 2000 I was in one of the malls here. I left the store I had been shopping at and went to the ATM which was about 50 yards away in an open area back down the wing. I got my twenty bucks and receipt and stuck them in my shirt pocket and started back towards the store. I didn’t really pay attention to who was around. I wasn’t thinking about that or even that it was necessary. My mind was on the fact that I needed the cash and had to get done so I could start heading to work. When I got about 2/3 of the way back I got this twitchy feeling like someone was watching me. Then in my right eyeglass lens I sort of caught a reflection of someone getting close to me. It was then that I thought, wait a minute. something’s wrong here. I stopped and turned around. There was a man about four feet away from me. I tried to look him in the eye. We had just passed the last down escalator for that wing. He turned and went and got on it. He looked down at his feet. I kept trying to look at him…to look him in the eye until he was out of sight.

Did I feel “safe?” I don’t know. I doubt it. I did not feel afraid. Would I have won had there been a physical confrontation? I don’t know. It’s possible. But maybe not. I know from what happened that the guy who was intending on shoving me and stealing my money or whatever he was going to do did not have the stomach for facing me full on. He’s a crook, a thief. His operating method was surprise and maybe speed. I was supposed to be left $20 poorer and wondering what happened. So my “safety” began the moment I stopped and took responsibility for myself and my surroundings and it only lasted as long as I was doing that.

Where was mall security? Where were the police? I don’t know and I really don’t care. It doesn’t do me any good having them there if my attacker is running to the exit with my money and they’ve maybe just heard through the grapevine that something just happened on the second level between Space City and Gadzooks. It doesn’t do anyone any good if they’re lying on the jogging trail with a stab wound, the mugger is running away with their iPod and the bicycle park police are on the other side of the lake. It’s called crime. The US military does not swear an oath to protect you from it. The police do, but they’re not your bodyguards or personal escorts. There is no static condition of safety or security that guarantees your freedom from it. The government doctor can implant an RFID chip next to your colon and an array of billion dollar satellites will know exactly where your body is when you just bled to death from a gunshot. While this will be an aid to the authorities in getting your remains to the coroner, none of this stuff matters if you could have dealt with a situation and didn’t because you weren’t paying attention.

Here are my “security measures”:

1. Trust no one. If you don’t know them personally they don’t have your back.
2. Compartmentalize your head. Stay sufficiently disconnected from your toys to be aware of your surroundings.
3. Don’t count money or have cash visible while walking around. Avoid open air ATMs.
4. Keep your bag between you and a wall.
5. If you’re at a restaurant take your stuff with you to the toilet.
6. Lock the car at night and stay with it until that stupid interior light goes out.
7. Look all around yourself all the time.
8. Know where the exit is.
9. Remember where you parked.
10. Watch the watchers. There is always someone who is out of place. Make sure you see them.
11. There are exceptions and variations to these. Try to keep that to a minimum.

Protecting yourself is your responsibility. It’s more important than feeling safe.

LifeLock: Identity Theft Prevention

The first case of someone having their identity stolen I heard about was when I ran into an old college buddy who was making copies of his birth certificate, high school diploma and college diploma. Someone was borrowing money on his credit file and he was trying to prove that he was not the person who had defrauded the businesses. I don’t know what happened with that situation. That was in 1988. It wasn’t as common and we weren’t calling it identity theft. Well things have progressed and now it can take years to find out about, stop and erase identity theft. What I mean by that is there are cases where a person has stolen information, applied for apartment leases, credit cards and relief as a Hurricane Katrina victim while never having left Texas. Just being careful, shredding credit card offers and receipts isn’t enough. People are coming up with more and more crafty ways of getting access to your personal information. You really need to investigate identity monitoring and theft prevention services like lifelock. Their $1 Million guarantee says it all. If after placing regular fraud alerts on your credit file with all three agencies, requesting that you be removed from junkmail and preapproved lists, and helping you monitor your credit reports your identity is still taken advantage of, they will do everything within their power to restore the integrity of your identity up to one million dollars. They work to prevent identity theft from occuring in the first place, not just alerting you that something is amiss. Now you probably shouldn’t paint your name and SSN on the side of a moving van like the guy in the commercial, but that’s how secure they want your identity to be. Have a look at lifelock dot com and let them show you how they can help you keep your peace of mind.

ITPlanet: Security Cameras

Maybe it’s time for an upgrade. Do you have an entrance that isn’t covered by your current security cameras? Have you or are you considering expanding your facility? As a business owner you’ve got to protect your assets. People with dishonest intentions are watching to see where the cameras are looking. And they’re not all outside your building. Can they figure out a blind spot? So many of the new surface mount cameras have a black internal enclosure which makes it hard to see the lens. Whether this is your first or 27th camera, ITPlanet can help you improve the security of your business. They offer cameras for five different types of connections. Is your current network sufficient? Do you need to add a wireless unit in a couple of spots? Maybe having a couple of extra cameras to test certain spots in a warehouse or loading dock or hallway would make it easier for you to assess things. ITPlanet has one of the best shipping arrangements I’ve ever seen. If you place your order by 7pm Central Time, it ships that day. They guarantee the lowest price and are willing to match a lower price you find from another online retailer. Have a look at their website at itplanet dot com. You can speak with customer service 7am-7pm. Let them help you figure out the best solution to your security hardware needs.

Superior service

I was preparing to do a big write up about IT Planet. It’s not even necessary. If you’re interested in a new security camera system go to itplanet.com and place your order by 7:00pm Central Time and it ships same day. That’s all anyone needs to know. Now run along and place your orders.

Seriously I don’t know of a shipper anywhere that has that late of a cutoff time. Most companies I have dealt with shut down at 2 or 3pm. Not only that, they guarantee the lowest price and will match a lower price on the same item. If you’re interested in data capture equipment, including barcode scanners and verifiers, ID Card printers, POS equipment, RFID printing or setting up or upgrading a security system, they have many products available to meet your need. They accept checks, credit cards, wire transfers and PayPal. If you’re looking to build or need to do an installation in an existing structure, give them a call or email them. They may know of contractors in your area to set up your new equipment. There is free ground shipping on many items. Check them out at itplanet dot com.