John Mueller

Jack Girardi

Guest: John Mueller
"Terror, Security and Money - The Risks, Benefits and Costs of Homeland Security"
Website http://polisci.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller

Prominent Trial Attorney, Jack Girardi interviews Professor John Mueller, who is Professor and Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies at the for International Security Studies and Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University on his new book, "Terror, Security and Money - The Risks, Benefits and Costs of Homeland Security", which he co-authors with Mark G. Stewart is Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability at The University of Newcastle.

Professor Mueller is the author of over a dozen books, several of which have won prizes. Among the most recent of these: The Remnants of War (2004), Overblown (2006), and Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda (2010). He has also published numerous articles in scholarly journals and general magazines and newspapers, is a member of the of Arts and Sciences, and has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow.

In seeking to evaluate the effectiveness of post-9/11 homeland security expenses—which have risen by more than a trillion dollars not including war costs—the common query has been "are we safer?" This, however, is the wrong question.
Of course we are "safer"—the posting of a single security guard at one building's entrance enhances safety, however microscopically. And for a trillion dollars a very large number of security guards can be added to the work force.
The correct question is "are any gains in security worth the funds expended?" Or in risk analyst Howard Kunreuther's rendering of the issue, "How much should we be willing to pay for a small reduction in probabilities that are already extremely low?"

He and co-author, Mark Stewart, seek in this book to provide answers focusing on the cost-effectiveness of the enhanced expenditures on homeland security measures that have taken place since 9/11 and then more specifically on measures designed to protect. We also put forward some comments about evaluating policing and intelligence matters, as well as ones concerning mitigation, resilience, and overreaction. In doing so, we apply standard risk and cost-benefit evaluation techniques that have been accepted and used throughout the world for decades by regulators, academics, businesses, and governments— but, as a recent National Academy of Science study suggests, never capably applied by the people administering homeland security funds.

Given the quite limited risk terrorism presents, enhanced expenditures designed to lower it for the most part have simply not been worth it. For example, to be considered cost-effective, American homeland security expenditures would have had each year to have saved nearly 11,500 lives or to have foiled, prevented, or protected against up to 1,667 attacks something like the one apparently intended on in 2010—or more than four per day. More specifically, analyses applying assumptions substantially biased toward the opposite conclusion suggest that the likelihood of a successful terrorist attack on a typical office-type building would have to be a thousand times higher than it is at present for protective security measures to be cost-effective.

Professor Mueller also suggests that the existence of political and public pressures does not relieve those in charge from being responsible in the way they expend public funds, particularly expenditures concerning public safety. Moreover, the fact that the United Kingdom spends proportionately less than half as much on comparable expenditures suggests that the pressures do not necessary require such high spending levels.

Jack Girardi, Partner at Girardi Keese, is one of America's Finest Trial Lawyers and our Co-Host, as always, brings out the most important key elements to the success of today's guests. He and his firm have been dedicated to working hard and getting the best possible recovery for its clients.

Girardi & Keese's mission is to provide aggressive representation of individuals and businesses who have been injured in some way, whether by physical harm, property damage, damage to business, or damage to economic interests. Girardi & Keese has two offices in California: Downtown Los Angeles and San Bernardino. www.girardikeese.com

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Contact:

Guest: John Mueller
"Terror, Security and Money - The Risks, Benefits and Costs of Homeland Security"
Website http://polisci.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller

Co-Host: Jack Girardi
213-977-0211
Girardi Keese
Website www.girardikeese.com

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER & HOST:
STEVE MURPHY

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