1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910822660903321

Autore

Molotch Harvey Luskin

Titolo

Against security : how we go wrong at airports, subways, and other sites of ambiguous danger / / Harvey Molotch

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, : Princeton University Press, c2012

ISBN

1-4008-5233-1

1-283-57145-5

9786613883902

1-4008-4486-X

Edizione

[Updated edition with a New Preface]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (279 p.)

Disciplina

363.325170973

Soggetti

Terrorism - Prevention - Government policy - United States

National security - United States

Transportation - Security measures - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface to the Paperback Edition -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1. Introduction: Colors of Security -- Chapter 2. Bare Life: Restroom Anxiety and the Urge for Control -- Chapter 3. Below the Subway: Taking Care Day In and Day Out -- Chapter 4. Wrong-Way Flights: Pushing Humans Away -- Chapter 5. Forting Up the Skyline: Rebuilding at Ground Zero -- Chapter 6. Facing Katrina: Illusions of Levee and Compulsion to Build -- Chapter 7. Conclusion: Radical Ambiguity and the Default to Decency -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

The inspections we put up with at airport gates and the endless warnings we get at train stations, on buses, and all the rest are the way we encounter the vast apparatus of U.S. security. Like the wars fought in its name, these measures are supposed to make us safer in a post-9/11 world. But do they? Against Security explains how these regimes of command-and-control not only annoy and intimidate but are counterproductive. Sociologist Harvey Molotch takes us through the sites, the gizmos, and the politics to urge greater trust in basic citizen capacities-along with smarter design of public spaces. In a new



preface, he discusses abatement of panic and what the NSA leaks reveal about the real holes in our security.