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I just came in to office and had a squabble with the office building's security guards over signing the employee in/out register. They insisted that I sign it while I was set on not doing so. They explained that this new policy was initiated in the wake of the recent bomb blasts.

How maintaining such a register will help prevent a bomb blast is beyond my understanding. But I now realize how strange my insistence on not signing the register would have seemed to the security guards. How do I reason this thing with them? Has anyone had similar experiences? Any suggestions?

PS: For those who are wondering why I'm so much against signing a simple register: I am against surveillance in principle, especially this kind of unwarranted one. You can get an idea of where this kind of surveillance will take us by reading George Orwell's 1984.

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Somehow there seems to have developed a trade-off between security and freedom, and it only seems to grow. It annoys me utterly every time I am asked to go through one of such things as signing in a register in a building, or having my bags checked in shops and so on. And every time I show my annoyance to the person doing it, or get into an argument. But a lot of times I get the feeling that we are in a minority. A lot of people not only undergo such intrusions willingly, they are only too glad that these systems are in place. Surely security is a huge issue. Just that I am not convinced this is the way to handle it. Well, but I don't have any plausible solutions either.

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In my case it is no secret that I resent this very much. My pet peeves were in my previous workplace, where interestingly, the security had accorded me vastly different treatments based on whether I came by scooter or by car. And even whether I came in my second hand Maruti 800 or whether I had came in my parents' much better Esteem car.

Much of these "security measures" have a huge gap between idea and implementation. Regardless of what the original idea is, at the ground level, more security means more muscling around and more power mongering.

Even if there is no gap between idea and implementation, if we start getting paranoid and put every activity under the lens in order to prevent terrorism, guess who is winning? Terrorists want to subvert the liveness of a system (or vastly lower the quality of life) by their activities, and our society seems to be cooperating with them in the name of security!

Having said that, it is definitely true that terrorism is a major challenge these days. There are all kinds of subversive elements who are strengthened and are able to organize better with progress in transport and communication technologies. So, I really don't know what is the answer to this challenge.

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Such paranoia-induced security seems to put the people in their most prejudiced outfit. The vehicle you drive, your religion and the color of your skin are only a few parameters which govern these prejudices. The random checks of people of Asian origin in UK are by now well known.

I am talking to the management at my office to get this security measure scrapped. I have been told that the register has actually been "requested" by the two offices on the floors above us. They would like the building administration to keep track of the human traffic in and out of the building. This revelation made me sadder and a lot more scared; I would have been happier if it was the opinion of the some individual building officials rather than that of the collective.

Our security measures, overall, are a sham. It is quite a daunting task and we seem to realize at some level how pointless it is. Consequently most of the security measures are just a show. Case in point: almost every mall in Hyderabad checks the boot of your car before you enter the parking but they never bother to check inside the car!

There is a bigger chance of you being in a road accident than in a terrorist attack.