The MTA, two weeks ago, revamped their security campaign with the release of a few new ads urging commuters to say something if they see something. It was an almost-prescient move by the transit authority as the city, after Osama Bin Laden’s death on Sunday, ramped up security across the board. As the Daily News noted briefly earlier this week, the subways are one area that will see increased police patrols. “We’re a little more visible today,” an MTA police officer said. “We have dogs out, guys with machine guns. They’re always here but we have more out. This is a major target.”
With the increased security comes more vigilance from the city’s straphangers as well. As ABC News reported, the added police presence will continue for some time as U.S. officials attempt to discern the fallout from Bin Laden’s death. So far, the city has noticed an increase in the number of people seeing something and saying something as well. On Monday, they fielded 60 calls — not all from the subways — and that total represents a figure higher than usual. Underground, the transit system remains porous, and striking the right balance between fear and vigilance remains necessary.
14 comments
Cue the dog-and-pony show. Stop those midwestern tourists and downtown office workers and search through their briefcases. I feel safer already.
More security theater that isn’t going to make anyone safer. The only reason the last attempt to target NYC (the car bomber) failed was because the guy had no idea how to build a bomb, NOT because some cop holding an M16 shot him.
“It was an almost-prescient move by the transit authority…”
I don’t think so. There were police and even uniformed soldiers (which I thought was illegal, but the rule of law is so quaint) with machine guns in Penn Station on April 21st. My partner and I were leaving on a trip out of the country, and we were both disturbed by it and glad to be getting the hell away from our militarized home for a week.
My guess is that there was a vague but serious warning issued within government some weeks before the strike; automatic weapons in train station are still not “normal”, even here. Any such action would carry the risk that OBL would be tipped off, but apparently no one thought much of it. And judging from Ben’s last sentence, I guess I can stop hoping that OBL’s demise is the beginning of a return to a nation where living in a “balance between fear and vigilance” is not asserted to be necessary but rightly identified as poison to free society.
+1 to your last sentence. When bin Laden was alive it was an excuse to keep destroying civil liberties, and now that he’s dead it’s also an excuse to keep destroying civil liberties. Nicely done, America.
+2 I couldn’t agree more with you. There was an article in the Journal News reguarding is OBL really dead or is this a massive hoaxe by the government. So is the state of journalism today.
THAT’S why they should release the pictures, no matter how gory they are.
HOW are your civil liberties being destroyed?
What is it that we could do before 9/11 that we are no longer permitted to do?
Unless you’re talking about airport searches, but those are a necessary evil in these times.
Enter the subway without possibly having our bags searched.
Since the Patriot Act, the US intelligence apparatus can check which websites I read without a warrant.
The bag searching on the subway is really starting to enrage me. I’m either incredibly unlucky or I go tanning too often because I’ve probably gotten stopped and missed my train a total of 20 times now. I know plenty that have never been searched. Maybe my backpack is too big or something.
Why don’t you enter through an entrance where there are no bag searches. I always see the bag searches in the exact same spot all the time, so I know which entrances on my route to avoid. At Port Authority, there are literally 25 entrances, yet they always choose to set up the searches by the same entrance all the time.
If you or I can figure this out, the “terrorists” obviously can too. Further proof that this is in fact a dog and pony show that doesn’t actually make us safer. All it does is cause people with some drugs in their bags to get arrested. Oh joy! I feel so safe.
Walk down the street without feeling like I live in a police state.
a demonstration of the police state mentality, from today’s times:
“Only one young man, who said he was from outside Kings Point and drove through on his way home, bristled a little. How come I wasn’t asked about this camera thing? he asked. If you’ve done nothing wrong, Mr. Kalnick told him, you should have nothing to worry about.”
nb that last sentence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05.....emc=tha211