Continue reading »]]> On 20 April 2011 I was invited to speak at a conference on “Critical Infrastructure Protection” at the Counter Terror Expo at the Olympia in London. The two vast Olympia exhibition halls were filled with exhibitors selling protection against terrorists: on display were lorry-bomb-resistant barriers and bollards, blast containment solutions, CCTV and covert surveillance systems, CBRN detection and protection, explosive detection systems, body armour, automatic number plate recognition hardware and software …… and much much more – click here for a full list of exhibitors. Counter-terrorism is, by all appearances, a vast and profitable industry, and one with an obvious incentive to stress the urgent need for its services. There were no exhibitors posing the question “Is all this necessary?”

In my presentation I argued for a sense of proportion – the precautionary principle allied to a vivid imagination can justify the denial of civil liberties and bankrupt any government. I cited the particular example of the police in London confiscating naked bicycles in the vicinity of Parliament Square and Whitehall on the grounds that they might be pipe bombs in disguise. I said that I could find no evidence of anyone, anywhere, ever having been killed by such a device – for previous postings on this subject click here.

This provoked a challenge on a website called Coldstreamers – a chat room for current and former members of the Coldstream Guards. It is refreshing to encounter people on the security frontline who are prepared discuss this issue. London’s Metropolitan Police have been conspicuously unwilling to provide a justification for their cycle parking ban in Westminster.

Someone who had been at my presentation said “I was at the counter terrorism expo last week and one of the professors said no one ever in the world had been killed by a bomb disguised as a bike and I’m sure he is wrong. Can any one help?”

Such help was not forthcoming. After about 400 hits one respondent familiar with the evidence said “Has it [a pipe bomb disguised as a bicycle] actually killed anyone? I think not.” And another denounced the police reaction as “a totally paranoid act.” After a further week and more than another 100 views without further comment this appears to be the final Coldstreamers’ word on the subject.

One definition of paranoia is “an excessive suspicion of the motives of others”. Judged by the actuarial evidence – no evidence has so far been produced of anyone in the world having been killed by a pipe bomb disguised as a bicycle – the police reaction is paranoid. The reaction is also arbitrary. It is possible, if difficult, to disguise a pipe bomb as a bicycle. But there are many other easier ways, from backpacks and briefcases to cars and lorries, to create a much larger explosion. If bicycles are to be banned from Parliament Square and Whitehall why not all the other places in London where large numbers of people congregate? The paranoid fear of bicycles carried to its logical conclusion would eliminate bicycles as a mode of transport.

Proving a negative is always difficult. The quest for evidence that a pipe bomb disguised as a bicycle has ever harmed anyone continues. But whether, in the whole history of terrorism, bicycle-pipe bombs have killed one person, or two, or a few, or no one, it still seems fair to characterize banning the parking of naked bicycles in Westminster as arbitrary and paranoid.

Continue reading »]]> On 3 June Simon Jenkins published a devastating critique of  the “security industry’s” promotion and exploitation of paranoia to expand its domain. It prompted the letter below, sadly not published. So I submitted it to my blog where it was accepted with alacrity.

Sir,

Simon Jenkins (Not every adult is a paedophile, a terrorist or a mass murderer, 3 June) sets out the impervious, paranoia-generating logic of the security industry: “If an incident occurs, it is reason for spending more on security. If no incident occurs it justifies what is already being spent.”

Perhaps the industry’s greatest achievement thus far in the deployment of this logic is its success in protecting us from bicycle bombs. Anyone who has parked a bicycle near Whitehall or Parliament Square will appreciate the efforts that are being made to protect us from this threat; the police will confiscate it on the grounds that it might be a pipe bomb in disguise.

It has worked. So far no one in Britain has been killed by such a device. But the achievement is global. I have appealed for evidence on various websites, on the Radio 4 Today Programme, and on the BBC World Service. On evidence so far received it appears that no one, anywhere, ever has been killed by such a device. Can one ask for more convincing justification? The inconvenience of thousands of cyclists seems a small price to pay.

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Faithful followers of this website may recollect an earlier blog, “Bicycle bombs: a further enquiry and a new theory”, in which I called attention to the fact that, despite the absence of evidence that anyone-anywhere-ever had been killed by a pipe bomb disguised as a bicycle, Westminster police were impounding bicycles parked near Whitehall and Parliament Square on the grounds that they could be bombs. I ventured to describe this behaviour as paranoid.

Through the wonderful grapevine that is the Internet I have just learned of the case of a person of some eminence falling victim to this policy, – twice – and twice being compensated by the police for her broken lock.[1]

Completely independent of my inquiries into the justification of such a policy, she inquired under the Freedom of Information Act how many bicycle bombs had been discovered in London since 2002.

She ran into the stonewall known to the cognoscenti as an NCND reply. The relevant authorities Neither Confirm Nor Deny anything: they had determined they said “that in all the circumstances of the case the public interest in maintaining the exclusion of the duty to neither confirm nor deny outweighs the public interest in confirming or denying whether the information is held.” Yes. Read it again. It’s (sic).

The reply goes on: if they were “to confirm or deny whether the information is held we consider that it would demonstrate the level of awareness that the police and other bodies have within this specific area, which we consider would not be in the interests of national security because it would alert terrorists as to whether or not their activities have been detected.”

Let’’s pick this apart. I have broadcast appeals on the BBC Today Programme, the BBC World Service, and various websites for evidence about the number of people killed, worldwide, by pipe bombs disguised as bicycles. So far the number returned is zero. So, if there have been some unsuccessful ones intercepted by the police or intelligence services, the terrorists will know about them. It must be conceded that there might have been some, like the Detroit underpants bomb, that simply failed to detonate. But whenever the police discover what they believe is a real bomb the event is highly public. Neighbourhoods are evacuated and cordoned off and the bomb squad sent for. In the case of “suspected” bicycle bombs in Westminster the police simply take them to the police station.

Given that the worldwide success rate for bicycle/underpants bombs is, so far, zero we must conclude that the authorities’ reluctance to disclose the information requested by the above mentioned persecuted eminent person is being withheld for reasons of embarrassment. The authorities have no justification for confiscating bicycles. They are simply paranoid.

They have one further argument:  “to confirm or deny whether the information is held would increase the fear of crime. This in itself is an objective for those committed to facilitating the cause of terrorism.” Duh!?  They publicly treat every bicycle in Westminster as a suspect pipe bomb and then say that to confirm that they know anything about what is going on would make us more fearful.

To disclose what is almost certainly the truth (we can but speculate), that bicycles pose no terrorist threat, and are an environmental and public health boon championed by most other branches of government, would briefly embarrass the Westminster police, but would help to inspire public confidence that the terrorist threat is being confronted with a sense of proportion.

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The above title advertises a Cambridge Science Festival event, (9 March 2009) in which I have been invited to participate.  My answer to the question in the title, will be spelt out in my first PowerPoint slide:

“No: because paranoia cannot be cured by CCTV, or DNA databases, or ID cards, or CRB checks, or number plate recognition, or GPS tracking, or email archiving, or data mining.”

Further, I intend to argue that the combined force of all of these measures feeds the threats that they purport to defend against. For rest of essay click here.

Continue reading »]]> Abstract

The introduction to the proceedings of the Royal Academy of Engineering 2006 seminar on The Economics and Morality of Safety concluded with a list of issues that were “worthy of further exploration”. I have  reduced them to the following questions:

• Why do moral arguments about ‘rights’ persist unresolved?

• Why can risk managers not agree on a common value for preventing a fatality?

• Why do governments and the media react differently to different causes of death?

• Why do some institutions profess to be pursuing zero risk, knowing that achieving it is impossible?

• Why do some institutions pretend that their risk management problems can be reduced to a calculation in which all significant variables can be represented by a common metric?

• Why are societal attitudes and risk communication still seen as problematic after many years investigation?

• Why are certain accident investigations, criminal or civil, seen as ‘over zealous’ by some and justifiable by others?

These questions are addressed with the help of a set of risk framing devices. For some my conclusion will be discouraging: all of these issues are likely to remain unresolved. Risk is a word that refers to the future. It has no objective existence. The future exists only in the imagination, and a societal consensus about what the future holds does not exist. … PDF of full paper

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Has anyone, anywhere, ever, been killed by a pipe bomb disguised as a bicycle? I have been pursuing this question since last June with the help of the Internet and the BBC’s Today Programme and World Service. So far the answer appears to be “not yet”; but it remains in the mind of the Westminster Police a theoretical possibility that must be zealously guarded against. (New readers can catch up here: http://john-adams.co.uk/2008/11/05/proving-a-negative-and-the-onus-of-proof/ )

The manner of the guarding is causing great inconvenience to significant numbers of cyclists. Around Parliament Square and Whitehall, and other areas that the police deem particularly sensitive to threats of terrorism, the police are confiscating bicycles on the grounds that they might be pipe bombs. A problem for cyclists is that the boundaries of these areas are not published. Cyclists are left to guess where it is safe to park their bicycles. Read on …

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Two assertions that I cannot prove:

·      No one, anywhere, ever, has been killed by a bicycle bomb.

·      No life, anywhere, ever, has been saved by the life jacket under their seat.

 Anywhere is a large place, and ever is a long time. The most one can do is broadcast an appeal for disproving evidence. In the case of bicycle bombs I have broadcast my appeal on my website, on various cycling Internet grapevines and on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. So far nothing. 

There remains a possible source of disproof. James Daley The Independent’s personal finance editor and cycling columnist (an inspired marriage of responsibilities) had his bicycle confiscated by the police for parking it near Trafalgar Square – http://blogs.independent.co.uk/independent/2008/04/my-bikes-been-n.html .

When he finally tracked it down he discovered that it was in the possession of Superintendent Ovens of Belgravia who justified his confiscation of James’ bicycle by producing a list of bike-bomb incidents dating to the 1930s -http://blogs.independent.co.uk/independent/2008/08/cyclotherapy-fi.html .

Intrigued by Superintendent Ovens assumption that James’ bicycle might have been a bomb I sent him an email asking if I might have a copy of his list of bike bomb incidents.

Dear Supt Ovens

I read in a blog by James Daley – http://blogs.independent.co.uk/independent/2008/08/cyclotherapy-fi.html – that you have a list of bicycle bomb incidents going back to the 1930s. Is it by any chance the list on which I comment on my website

- http://john-adams.co.uk/2008/07/28/bicycle-bombs-a-threat-to-westminster/ ?

If your list is different might I have a copy?

 Since posting my commentary on 28 July my request for evidence justifying the Westminster cycle parking ban has been picked up and more widely disseminated by various cycling grape vines. I also had an opportunity on 30 July to broadcast my request for evidence on the Today Programme and the BBC World Service. So far I have yet to receive a single convincingly documented case of a fatality caused by a bicycle bomb.

 I am amongst the large number of cyclists who have routinely experienced significant inconvenience as a consequence of the cycle parking ban. We would like to see the evidence justifying it.

 I would be very interested in any comments that you might have on the commentary on my website.

Despite two chasing emails the only response I have had to my message, first sent on 10 September, is “All rather busy but it’s on my list of things to do.”

So I still cannot prove that a bicycle bomb has never killed anyone, anywhere, ever. Proving a negative is notoriously difficult. When I confronted a senior police official recently with the fact that I had been unable to find a single instance of anyone, anywhere, ever having been killed by a bicycle bomb he replied instantly with “Yet”.

This takes us into the realm of “worst case scenarios”. Must everything imaginable, despite the fact that it has never happened and is highly improbable, now be guarded against?  Guarded against by authorities who cannot be challenged? This appears to be the state of affairs governing cyclists in the political heart of London.

When trust in those responsible for our safety is lost we become less safe. If their warnings and commands are not credible they will be ignored or disobeyed or – worse – construed as evidence that our guardians haven’t a clue.

Consider another example of bureaucratic paranoia: the life jacket under your seat. I recently asked the most senior person I know in the world of aviation: has any life been saved by the lifejacket under the seat, whose
 location and fitting is explained on every trip? He knew of none, although he did comment that many thousands of life jackets had been stolen by passengers heading for boating holidays in the Mediterranean.

So here we are. The police in the political heart of London are defending against a highly improbable terrorist threat in a way that seriously inconveniences thousands of cyclists, and the airlines continue to insist that billions of passengers pay attention to meaningless safety advice. Why should we trust them with our safety? Why should we pay attention?

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My bicycle bombs story (see previous blog and comments – http://john-adams.co.uk/?p=122 ) was also aired on the BBC Today Programme and the BBC World Service on 30 July.

I still haven’t received any convincingly documented case of a bicycle bomb, in the form of the frame packed with explosives, killing anyone anywhere in the world.

One commentator says, “I have heard of a bicycle used as a bomb reported to be in Sofia c.1948. The reports are of the saddle being ejected by some 300 feet but the bike remained rideable.”

The trick in making an effective pipe bomb (see How to make a pipe bomb – http://www.linkbase.org/make-pipe-bomb/) appears to lie in fixing caps that are stronger than the pipe itself. Otherwise the pipe won’t explode. The caps (or the saddle) pop off and you have an interesting firework.

I’ve had a number of responses indicating that the anti-terrorist bureaucratic paranoia I complain about is not confined to Parliament Square in London.

More comments/examples would be welcome. It would be interesting to see just how widespread the ban on cycle parking is, and the extent to which it is rooted in anti-terrorist paranoia or simple anti-cycle prejudice.

Continue reading »]]> On 25 June I participated in a debate held by the Royal Institute of British Architects

“This house believes we should fortify our cities”.

Piers Gough and I opposed the motion. In the course of the debate the proposers, Lorraine Gamman and Adam Thorpe, raised the threat of bicycle bombs. After the debate they produced evidence to support their view that bicycle bombs were a threat to be taken seriously – now posted on the debate website . I present below my comments on their evidence.

For my comments click here