Ten minutes into the New Year I was reminded of what primitive times we live in.

My wife and I were at a party in Washington, DC. We each split off from the other guests and called friends and relatives after the ball dropped. We sat there for a couple of minutes, trying one number after another, frustrated that every call was either dropped cold, with a network advisory message or the cellular equivalent of a busy signal. Everyone wanted to call our friends and relatives! Or perhaps their own. Either way, the cellular networks could not handle the onslaught. "It's good to know they are useful in the event of an emergency," I thought.

Washington, DC, must be the police and security capital of the world. A lot of it is stupid. My favorite example of dumb security is the entrance to the Ronald Reagan Building and conference center. The security guards ask to see identification, but they have no list to check who should or shouldn't gain entrance to the building. Nor do they make a list of who enters and exits. Nor is there compelling reason why they should. Maybe they are undercover sociology graduate students researching whether people smile in photo IDs.

That's not the worst though. The building I used to work in has a doorway off the lobby that leads into a bookstore. Whenever politicians raise the threat level to orange, the door is guarded at all times other than 8 am to 10 am and 4 pm to 6 pm. There is a sign in the bookstore saying when the doors are guarded or not guarded, open or locked, perhaps as an advisory to terrorists to attempt evil-doing only during hours of low-foot traffic. The building does not distribute ID cards, but does require RFID keys for entrance and exit. Last year, during some kind of national-security emergency, I was exiting the building lobby to go into the bookstore. A guard asked to see my RFID card, which I did not have with me. He hassled me for a minute, then I hassled him, asking why it was necessary for me to show him something that isn't identification in order to exit the building. Never mind that the biggest security threat is to the city, not the building (although it is filled with tobacco lawyers and consultants), so the likeliest emergency situation would have people streaming in from sidewalks seeking shelter, every last one of them without ID and, of course, without a working cell phone.

Traffic security personnel near the Capitol harrass pedestrians for standing two feet off the curb during a DON'T WALK signal. I pointed out to one of them that in the time I was standing there, three drivers shot past us while talking on the phone, which is illegal in DC. "Well, they're already gone," he said. Seems to me that car accidents caused by cell-distracted drivers accounted for many more deaths in the United States last year than terrorism. How about putting cell-phone jammers in every car that turn on with the ignition?

Bottom line: Why do I have to tolerate dumb-security when things that matter, such as the cellular communications infrastructure can't even handle New Year's Eve festivities?