Red tape means that communication is worse, not better. Wouldn't you say?
This is from an article on the filming in NYC of "I Am Legend":
Creating such a tableau would be difficult in any large city, but accomplishing it in post-September 11 New York seems nothing short of Sisyphean. The number of permits and permissions involved was staggering. "Just finding out who you needed the permits from and who needs to sign off was a job," Kramer says. "I needed to get permission from the (Economic Development Corp.), (the Department of Environmental Conservation), the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, the New York City (Department of Transportation), the New York State DOT, the Department of Small Business Services, the FDNY, the NYPD Harbor Unit, the NYPD Aviation Unit, the ( Federal Aviation Administration), the U.S. Army, the National Guard and the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting."
If that seems Byzantine in its web of red tape, there is a reason. According to John Battista, deputy commissioner of the mayoral film office, the hoops are all about safety.
The article continues:
"The priority is the safety of the general public," he says. "We have to have communication with all agencies, from the federal to the state to the local. We were in constant contact with those involved. Ten years ago, if we needed to get something done, it took a quick phone call. We had no fears. But after 9/11, we have to be more cognizant of what's going on around us."
Safety is equated right in this statement with communication; constant contact.
And yet, in rhetorical slight of hand, the old switcheroo is pulled... And the idea that more red tape is part of that security is put over.
Wouldn’t being able to secure permission with a quick phone call, or in any case a single step, be indicative of constant contact, and good inter-agency cooperation?
Aren’t miles of red tape indication that things have gotten worse on this front, with calcified attitudes? If you can't clear a film in one process, and then communicate that a film is being shot, how can you communicate during a terrorist attack, or rapidly develop and then communicate the specific needs for response to a serious terror alert?
We should feel safer when our affairs, whether mundane or extraordinary, move more efficiently and freely. Not when they shuffle around in a dozen shackles.