If you would like to get a quick sense of how ubiquitous securitythinking has become in our everyday lives, I can recommend a couple of social experiments. At your next celebration where bringing a gift is the anticipated social norm, take the intended recipient aside and as you hand them their present, politely warn them, “I just need to let you know, this item does not meet established safety standards.” Note the recipient's reaction. This is particularly effective when you are not well known to the recipient (although I would not recommend it, especially if the recipient is a parent accepting the present on behalf of a child). Here's another statement that can be used to great effect, particularly in Ottawa where many of the people I meet through friends and acquaintances work for the federal government. After saying hello and asking the obligatory, “And where do you work?” respond to their job title with the following: “Oh, I could never work there. I would never qualify for the security clearance.” Or, you can substitute: “I'd never pass the background check.” It usually has the same effect: awkward silence or a quick change of topic. Indeed, perhaps the only other intentional security-related faux pas that seems to surpass both of these statements is to say outright, “I am against security.” (It helps to maintain a dead-pan expression and offer no follow-up explanation.) The point here is not to be the designated social pariah at future social events but rather, even if you never try these social experiments yourself, to think about the meaning of the responses you would likely receive. Like other, far more sophisticated experiments in social psychology, the point is to bring to light a part of the human condition that is otherwise unseen or misunderstood. It is, in this case, to scrutinize the power of the ideology of security. We are bombarded with all sorts of security indicators today that signal to us safety, social status, inclusion, and desirability in a manner that would be utterly alien to previous generations. Our security mindset has been conditioned by the myriad institutions we come into contact with on a daily basis and by our making and consumption of commodities: the security–industrial complex.