COMMENTARY
Hawai'i's lower risks don't need high profile

By Dave Polhemus
Advertiser Editorial Writer

The guards are out at the airport. Honolulu's harbor is under the thumb of unprecedented security attention.

From Camp Smith to local police departments, computers and radios are humming as officials look for any threat to the security of these islands.

Are we at risk?

For a short time, Gov. Linda Lingle made a point of keeping Hawai'i's security alert status at "blue" while most — if not all — of the rest of the nation had moved to the more elevated "orange" level. The suggestion was that Hawai'i was, is, more secure than the rest of the nation.

On one level it doesn't make much practical difference what security threat Lingle says the state faces from terrorists.

That's because the alert level of the most critical infrastructure in Hawai'i falls under federal criteria. It's not helpful, of course, that the public faces a baffling variety of alert systems, with the state now at yellow, the nation at orange and the military at bravo.

But that misses the point. The concern is the wisdom of trumpeting to the rest of the country and the world that Hawai'i is one of the safest states in the nation and an especially safe tourist destination.

True, Hawai'i has not been specifically named as a target in the monitored "chatter" that has led to higher security alert levels. But neither have most of the other states, which nevertheless quickly conformed. With war under way in Iraq, we are warned that al-Qaida "sleeper cells" could be anywhere in our country, preparing mischief.

In one regard, Hawai'i has a clear safety advantage over other states: It doesn't have contiguous land borders with other jurisdictions. Thus terrorists can't use trucks or cars, for instance, to transport explosives from one state to the next.

This element of safety emphasizes that Hawai'i is surrounded by thousands of miles of water. But marine transportation introduces its own sort of threat.

Security officials acknowledge that there's no way to inspect all of the thousands of containers that are offloaded at Hawai'i ports, and a single container is big enough to pack your worst nightmare. The Coast Guard maintains careful surveillance of the variety of fishing, cargo and passenger vessels that call here, sometimes unannounced, but not all of them can be inspected, either.

The last major targets struck by al-Qaida were tourism centers. Bali evidently was chosen for a bombing that killed 200 people because it's an attraction for American and other foreign tourists, and its security levels were kept low to keep it tourist-friendly. A resort hotel in Kenya was also a recent deadly target.

The fact that Hawai'i is a major attraction for Japanese and other foreign tourists as well as visitors from the Mainland, and — more to the point — the impression that Hawai'i may sound complacent because it publicizes a lower security level, could be just the indicators that terrorists — or even an independent actor looking to make a point — are looking for.

Reach Dave Polhemus at dpolhemus@honoluluadvertiser.com.