In Hans Christian Andersen’s fable The Emperor’s New Clothes, we are presented with a story of an Emperor who wears an invisible (i.e., non-existent) suit of clothes believing they possess magical powers and are visible only to those noble enough to serve his court. As the Emperor dared not admit his own inability to see the clothes, he proudly presented them to his constituency. However, walking through the crowd, it was the Emperor’s own people who shouted “the Emperor has no clothes!”

The recent news regarding screening failures at major airports across the U.S. should have done more than merely ring bells and raise red flags; collectively, we should all scream “the Emperor has no clothes!” Though there remains a constant development of faster, more sensitive and user-friendly technologies to deal with terrorist’s threats, it is the human element—the technology operators—that need to be the core of today’s security framework. Has technology been oversold as a magical solution to prevent terrorism?

To be sure, technology serves as an important force multiplier in security. It provides the extra eyes, X-ray vision, and super noses we humans have yet to develop naturally. But it has also become our crutch. Much as speed dialing has reduced our need to remember phone numbers, security technology does the heavy lifting while we wait for the results—right number or wrong? good guy or bad? When the light is green it’s good; but what do we do when it’s red?

The security technology industry is a multi-billion dollars business. Current solutions function well for a narrow range of problems, i.e., when each one of those solutions is applied separately. However, these same solutions are an expensive, cumbersome, slow, and unfriendly cacophony of instruments when combined together.

The most problematic issue is the promise of each machine’s capability in catching terrorist activities. All machines have their limitations, and in many cases, such limitations are present in the product’s literature. Hence, the problem: if a technical or procedural limitation is known, it can be exploited for nefarious purposes.

So where have we gone wrong? Why, as technology gets more advanced by the day, do the loopholes remain the same? The answer is in the process. For too long, technology has shouldered the burden of judgment in security operations. We rely on electronic instruments to make a determination that should be purely psychological—terrorist threat. As we can’t apply technology to predict someone’s thoughts, we can’t apply technology to detect someone’s intentions. In addition, even the best technology cannot detect means of aggression available within the secured environment itself.

Therefore, it is the human element which should provide the highest level of judgment in security. Though keeping a properly trained security staff can be expensive and require constant maintenance, it is the single best security component for dealing with the intent and means of terrorism. The human mind is the best machine to detect suspicion indicators even when these suspicions can only be articulated as “gut feeling”. Because to date, there is no machine that can accomplish that.

It has been proven that properly trained security personnel can mitigate terrorist threats with a high level of success. An example of this is El Al Airlines security which provides overall threat mitigation for Israeli airliners. At El Al, no one, not even the head of security, can overrule a gut feeling on the part of an agent may have regarding a passenger, maintenance technician, or cleaner who is approaching the aircraft. In such cases, procedure dictates a thorough check of the person and their belongings, or possibly an escort while in the protected environment.

Technology is but one tool in the security tool box, not a magical solution to all our security challenges. These recent screening failures are a wake up call for us to realize that today, the most important aspect of security is not the technology we buy – it’s the procedures we apply.

Tomer Benito