We Can Do Better Than Buying Duct TapeCARL HIAASEN, Posted on Sun, Feb. 16, 2003
The most powerful and technologically advanced nation in the world is advising citizens to use duct tape and plastic to protect against terrorist attacks.
Homeland security is now a Monty Python skit. Instead of the Minister of Silly Walks, we have Ministers of Silly Warnings.
Duct tape and plastic sheeting is a dandy way to cover the windows if, say, you're getting your porch stuccoed. It's a joke, however, if you're hoping to insulate your family from clouds of poison gas or anthrax germs.
Federal officials want everybody to prepare for terrorist assaults the same way they prepare for natural disasters such as hurricanes. Unfortunately, terrorists can't be tracked by weather satellites before they strike.
Most people require several hours to board up or bolt on the shutters when a hurricane is coming. There's no reason to expect that al Qaeda will give us that kind of time, or any advanced warning.
In the unlikely event that we learned when and where an attack was about to occur, it would be whimsically optimistic to think a house can be hermetically sealed with duct tape and Visqueen. If an ant can get inside, so can several million smallpox germs.
The duct-tape advisory came from the new Department of Homeland Security, which wants us to feel more secure in our homes. Even better than the tape would be the knowledge that the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies finally are sharing information instead of hoarding it.
There will always be practical, sobering limitations on what government can do to protect us, and on what we can do to protect ourselves. No one benefits when officials exaggerate what is possible.
The myth of border security is another example. As anyone living in South Florida can attest, there is no such thing as a secure border.
Last month, Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge came to Miami and zipped around Biscayne Bay with an armed flotilla of Customs agents and Coast Guard officers. The media event was staged to show off the Bush administration's commitment to guarding our shores.
The choice of locations was less than inspiring. The same coastline along which Ridge went daytripping is routinely penetrated by successful smugglers of narcotics and illegal aliens.
Weeks earlier, a large (and embarrassingly slow) vessel carrying 235 Haitian refugees somehow made it all the way to the Rickenbacker Causeway in broad daylight without being stopped.
Watching live TV coverage of the the Haitians leaping overboard and scrambling to the road, you prayed that none of them would drown -- and at the same you wondered where were the forces who were supposed to be patrolling those waters.
A boatload of suicide bombers would not likely make such a conspicuous arrival. They would come, as the smugglers do, on fast boats in the black of night. And the odds are, they wouldn't get caught.
Look at what happened on Feb. 7, the same day that the United States raised its terrorist alert to ''high.'' A group of armed Cuban defectors in a 30-foot speedboat roared unmolested into Key West Harbor at 4 a.m.
The men, members of Cuba's border guard, docked at the Hyatt Resort and Marina not far from the Coast Guard station. Then they went ambling down Duval Street in search of someone to take them into custody. One defector carried a Chinese pistol; two AK-47s were stowed on the speedboat.
Even though the men meant no harm, the incident failed to inspire much confidence in the homeland security operation.
Nor could it be dismissed as some freak occurrence or uncharacteristic lapse of vigilance. Hardly a week goes by without a group of refugees turning up on a Florida beach somewhere.
The scary truth is, no U.S. boundary -- land, river or sea -- is remotely close to being secure. The country is too vast, the law-enforcement bureaucracy too overloaded, the violators too determined and resourceful.
That doesn't mean we give up on our borders, because sometimes we get lucky. Sometimes a bad guy actually gets nabbed. But please spare us the hype and false promises. Every single American is aware that the threat of terrorism is real, and that some very serious people hate us deeply enough to plan a massacre.
So, yes, we'll keep our eyes open for suspicious characters. We'll stock up on batteries and bottled water. We might even sit still for a smallpox vaccination, if there's enough of the stuff to go around. But duct tape and plastic? We'll be toast before we can cover up one lousy window.
Either Tom Ridge has a bent sense of humor, or he owns lots of stock in Home Depot. | 
