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TB case: it all comes down to human issues
By WDavidStephenson | May 31, 2007
The Andrew Speaker TB case is a graphic reminder that, no matter what kinds of policies we institute to screen people at the borders, it still comes down to human factors. Just as many of the security guards interviewed by AP for the story on chinks in the DHS armor weren’t adequately trained and/or didn’t recognize a threat when they saw it, the border crossing guard at Lake Champlain who let Andrew Speaker cross “because he didn’t look sick” — even though he was clearly listed on the quarantined list — managed to obviate all those policies due to his own ignorance, lack of training, poor judgment — you name it.
And while we’re on human factors, if some stupid guy decides that he’s not bound by an explicit order and takes all sorts of devious steps in order to return to the US, just think what can happen when a cunning terrorist puts his/her mind to circumventing our policies?
It’s not unlike corporate computer security, where techs are told to ignore the “CEO” who calls in on a Sunday morning, ranting about how he has lost his password and has to get into the system because of a critical meeting Monday morning. He might be the CEO, or he might be a devious hacker: it’s better to err on the side of enforcing the laws strictly than to have the whole system collapse because of human error.
If there’s anything good to come from this situation, it’s the dumb luck that at least Mr. Speaker (who, irony of irony, is married to the daughter of a CDC TB researcher: she should have paid a little more attention at the family dinner table when dad talked about her work, and/or put her foot down when her new hubby hatched his scheme. Can this marriage be saved???) didn’t have H5N1 — this should really be a heads-up that we need a stem-to-stern review of policy, training, and decision-making when it comes to border crossing issues.
Technorati tags: homeland security DHS Department of Homeland Security War on Terror antiterrorism no-fly list TSA air travel Customs and Immigration avian flu H5N1 pandemic Influenza birdflu bird flu public health
CDC TB disaster planningAndrew Speaker
Topics: policy and politics, avian flu | |
