Excellent blog post by Schneier this morning on the issue of allocating resources. Basically, FBI resources have been taken off of counter-terrorism to work on the Madoff case.
A major question is: have we helped create a worse situation in the financial markets by putting too many resources on a rarer problem, terrorism, at the expense of protecting people from other threats?
I have certainly seen this myself. When talking to FBI agents about malware issues (including very severe issues involving keyloggers stealing personal data), I�ve heard them speak of the fact that terrorism is a higher priority in the agency, leaving them fewer resources to combat other issues like malware. And it�s not like they don�t want to help � I�ve never met a federal agent who wasn�t absolutely committed to putting bad guys away and fighting the good fight. They themselves feel helpless in these situations � good people in a tough situation. They do what they can, but there�s only so much they can do.
This is more than sad, especially when you�re sitting on a pile of stolen personal data, and the feds can�t deal with it adequately for lack of resources.
What we�ve done is scare the crap out of people, over-allocate resources, created a monstrous bureaucracy, and lost sight of the fact that these agencies only have so many resources, so much time, and they can�t spend it all on terrorism.
And for many years, anyone who pointed this blindingly obvious fact was labeled themselves as some sort of weak-kneed, pacifist, terrorist sympathizer who didn�t somehow �get it�.
Ridiculous.
Alex Eckelberry
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