Oooooh, I just know all my friends will be up for this challenge. Privacy International‘s offering a small roundup of awards for stupid security procedures, whether at the high school, the garbage cans, the airport, or just at the border between the US and Manitoba which is patrolled on the US side by armed militiamen, and on the Canadian side by two red cones, which represents, by the way, a doubling of security on Canada‘s part.
Let no man say we don’t take TWAT seriously!
In any case, here’s the scoop on the Stupid Security Awards, and may the stupidest win. Note that it is open to everyone, internationally.
Stupid security has become a global menace. From the airport that this month emptied out a full plane because a passenger was drinking from a lemonade bottle, to the British schools that fingerprint their children to “stop” the theft of library books, to the airline company that refused to allow passengers to bring books or magazines onto the plane, the world has become infested with bumptious administrators competing to hinder or harass us – and often for no good reason whatever.
The sensitive and sensible folk at Privacy International have endured enough of this treatment. So we are running an international competition to discover the world’s most pointless, intrusive, stupid and self-serving security measures.
The “Stupid Security Awards” aim to highlight the absurdities of the security industry. Privacy International’s director, Simon Davies, said his group had taken the initiative because of “innumerable” security initiatives around the world that had absolutely no genuine security benefit. The awards were first staged in 2003 and attracted over 5,000 nominations. This will be the second competition in the series.
“The situation has become ridiculous” said Mr Davies. “Security has become the smokescreen for incompetent and robotic managers the world over”.
Unworkable security practices and illusory security measures do nothing to help issues of real public concern. They only hinder the public, intrude unnecessary into our private lives and often reduce us to the status of cattle.
The airline industry is the most prominent offender, but it is not alone. Consider the UK rail company that banned train-spotters on the grounds of security (e.g. see this article(external). Or the security desk of a US office building that complained because paramedics rushing to attend a heart-attack victim had failed to sign-in. Or the metro company that installed a $20,000 biological weapons/gas detector and placed it openly next to a power plug so terrorists could conveniently unplug the device.
Privacy International is calling for nominations to name and shame the worst offenders. The competition closes on October 31st 2006. The award categories are:
- Most Egregiously Stupid Award
- Most Inexplicably Stupid Award
- Most Annoyingly Stupid Award
- Most Flagrantly Intrusive Award
- Most Stupidly Counter Productive Award
The competition will be judged by an international panel of well-known security experts, public policy specialists, privacy advocates and journalists.
The competition is open to anyone from any country. Nominations can be sent to stupidsecurity@privacy.org.
Details of previous award winners can be found below, or at http://www.privacyinternational.org/ssa2003winners.
It’s all so sordid. Not content with 
plentiful: Both have a long mane of blonde hair and legs that are thin enough to comfortably slip a LiveStrong silicone bracelet on the lower thigh. And whether it’s fair or not, 
Well, the guy who sent the pictures in claims it’s Jesus, but 
raincoaster 