Walking past booth after booth of iris scanners, bomb-proof glass samples, exploding money packs, K-9 outfitters, diver-proof underwater netting, laser-powered motion detectors, ubiquitous security cameras and my favorite, the bulletproof Mercedes, I begin to feel like the folks at the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) have turned the Pennsylvania Convention Center into the Paranoia Pavilion for their annual conclave.

Of course, if ever there was a time for paranoia, now is it, what with the anniversary of 9/11 and looming war with Iraq.

Despite the millions and millions of dollars of high-tech gee-gaws available for purchase at the convention -- and the billions of dollars we have spent nationwide in the name of homeland security (Philadelphia alone spent more than $20 million, the mayor announced Tuesday) -- how much safer are we today than we were a year ago?

"Not much has been done that would have prevented it," says retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. General Martin Steele.

Steele, a ramrod-straight military type now working in the private sector with a company called Global Security International (GSI) -- which was created to bring Israeli security know-how onto U.S. soil -- is not playing a blame game. He's just telling it like it is.

This country, he says, needs to spend more on homeland security. And he has plenty of nice things to say about Tom Ridge, whom he knows and thinks should be given the tools to fight the war on terror.

"Had we been communicating across the agencies," he said, "the CIA, FBI, DIA, NSA, just to name a few, the State Department, and had an umbrella organizational construct, there is a strong possibility that this could have been prevented."

General Steele is here, of course, to sell the wonders of GSI, a full-service security company built on the battle-tested Israeli model, and on whose advisory board he happens to sit. He and his partner, Israel Perlov, a former Israeli security officer who once guarded Israeli television reporters, are among the hundreds who have come to share in the hoped-for post 9/11 bonanza.

Would you believe four to five, according to Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) statistics? And that was between 1993 and 1997.

I was. Apparently, while these incidents may be reported locally, not many make the evening news radar screen.

In a package of statistics to back up his lecture about the latest bomb-proof building techniques, Joseph Smith, director of security consulting services for Applied Research Associates, explained that the United States has long been a target and that no one should have been surprised by 9/11. He also pointed out new methods of construction to minimize bomb impact.

The BATF chart contained in Smith's package shows that during those five years, there were 10,364 actual bombings, which killed 364, injured 2,965 and caused nearly $650 million in property damage.

Most of those horrific numbers come from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which was blown up April 19, 1995.

Plenty of bomb detectors, metal detectors, spy cameras and the like, a real libertarian nightmare, but none of it trained on the doors leading in and out. It was all on the showroom floor.

"I was really surprised by the lack of security," says Dave Erchell, who works for Global Risk Partners, which "specializes in central South America."

"I have a bag with a laptop and all that, but I didn't bring it because I thought there would be long lines to get that stuff through."

The same cannot be said for Independence National Historical Park. On my way back to the office from ASIS, I stop in to see how things are going there in the wake of Orange Alert. Before I can get into the buildings, I am stopped at the security desk. The woman working the X-ray machine notices "a lot of metal."

I am loaded down with crappity from the convention and my briefcase is a mess. Soon four or five park rangers are rooting through my briefcase, pulling out my money, my papers and the other junk.

Finding nothing, they put the much-less-loaded briefcase back through the X-ray machine.

I am embarrassed. During a recent camping trip, we gave our boy a pocketknife so he could whittle. But he left the knife lying around, so I took it from him until he learns how to handle it.

And yes, I left it in my briefcase. Though fortunately in the original bag in the original box.

Explanation accepted, I am sent on my way, where I run into people who were thinking about changing their holiday plans in the wake of code orange. A man from Nebraska says his kids called him to warn him and that he is now rethinking traveling to D.C. on the 11th. A woman from Seattle says she too is going to avoid public places on the anniversary.