Insecurity Systems Ride the Rails Underground
Riding the subway is dangerous. Not as dangerous as driving, but there are certainly risks involved. For that matter, living itself-taking that next breath-is dangerous. That's the nature of things.
Yet when given the choice, a disturbing percentage of people will choose "security" over "freedom" in their daily lives. They say they'll happily give up a few freedoms so long as they know they're safe. It wasn't always that way, but it's certainly true now. People demand security, no matter the cost, no matter if it's nothing but a sham.
Take the New York City subway system. Since the World Trade Center attacks and the bombings in London and Madrid, lawmakers and commuters alike have screamed for tighter subway security, lambasting the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the subway's governing body, for not doing enough.
In October 2005, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi announced a $130 million increase in the MTA's security budget, bringing the total security budget to $721 million. The MTA explained that the agency needed the extra $130 million because a few of their "high priority" projects had grown more expensive. That's why, in announcing the increase, Hevesi also promised that the State would keep a much closer eye on how the money was spent.
So how was it spent? More transit police on the trains and the platforms, random bag checks, security cameras. All the things you'd expect. A good chunk of the money seems to have gone for radio spots and subway ads reminding us to keep our eyes peeled for shady-looking characters and unattended bags. Oh-and that subway evacuation video they posted on their Web site. But lawmakers and commuters demanded more, so last week the MTA announced their latest security measure-a doozy straight out of a Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner) novel.
Here's the plan: Retrofit MetroCard machines with devices that can detect trace amounts of explosives on your fingertips when you touch the screen. When the system detects something suspicious, all the turnstiles in the station will lock down. Then the MetroCard machine will take a photo of the person connected to the soiled fingertip and transmit it to the police, who will be on the scene even before the wily would-be bomber receives his card.
The new devices were developed by a company called Cubic (working with GE Security), which subcontracted the job from Lockheed-Martin, the defense contractor hired to install an array of motion detectors and surveillance cameras throughout the subway.
Of the measures both existing and planned, the question isn't just "how effective are they?" but "could they be effective at all?" Think about it.
Do Photos, Bag Checks Deter Bombers?
A greater police presence in the subway might deter a mugger or a pickpocket, but what about a suicide bomber? Would he reconsider just because a cop's there? Or would he instead see the officer as bonus points?
Security cameras might get pictures of the person who planted the bomb or released the gas, and in that become an invaluable tool in tracking the perp down later. They've certainly been helpful in cracking bank robberies and convenience store stickups. But cameras haven't stopped any robberies, and they wouldn't stop a bomb from exploding. They're only useful after the fact.
The random bag checks were a joke, a simulation of security but nothing more. Little old ladies lined up to prove they were good citizens, while anyone smart enough to build a backpack bomb would also likely be smart enough to go to one of the stations where there weren't any bag checks. After a while people got bored with those anyway, and the bag checks, for all intents and purposes, seem to have faded away after the initial media hoopla.
As for those new bomb-sniffing MetroCard machines, well ... you're working with some mighty big assumptions there. First and foremost, the MTA is counting on the fact that someone who's put a bomb in his bag is going to get to the subway station and remember only then that he left his MetroCard at home. If you're dealing with a prepared terrorist, then those multi-million dollar machines are useless.
But that's the least of it. According to the Daily News, Cubic "wouldn't detail what substances can be detected. But officials said there would be safeguards to limit-but not completely eliminate-false alerts." (Cubic provided the MetroCard machines in the first place, and we all know how reliable those are.)
In short, you better think twice about that smoke on the way to the subway or boy, you won't be going anywhere for a while. Better watch out if you're buying a MetroCard after lunch, too, or if you've been working on a car. Would Handi-Wipes help? Who knows? It doesn't seem to bother Cubic or the MTA too much. If a few people are falsely accused of being terrorists, well, that's just the price we pay for security.
Mostly what the MTA has done with their security budget, it seems, is recruit straphangers as freelance snitches, reminding them to report any suspicious bags and people who don't look like them. And what has that gotten us? Thousands of people panicking about discarded CVS bags and a whole lot of useless train delays-but nary a bona fide terrorist threat thwarted. Consider that in recent history two bombs have detonated on or near the city's subway-and neither was planted by a Muslim extremist.
In December of 1994, an unemployed computer programmer named Edward Leary carried a homemade firebomb onto the 4 Train. The bomb prematurely detonated at Fulton Street, while Leary was holding it in his lap. Some 50 people in the car were slightly injured, and Leary (who was severely burned) is serving 96 years in prison.
In July 2004, Joseph Rodriguez, an ex-cop with problems of his own, made a small pipe bomb out of gunpowder and BBs and brought it to the Times Square Station. He was in the process of warning people away from it when it exploded. He was the only one who was injured. It's reported that he "hadn't been right" since 9/11, and just wanted to be a hero.
Should we even bother to make note of the July 1997 sting in which three Jordanians living in Brooklyn were arrested for planning to bomb the Union Street subway station, which would've likely hurt no one and inconvenienced, oh, say, maybe 12 people?
While he had no immediate solutions, he did see a rather disturbing future.
"Down the road," he surmised, "one might envision pervasive digital cameras monitored by automatic face recognition software. Such a system would notice newcomers, and cue transit police to approach them for possible search and seizure."
Last July, however, shortly after the London bombings, he seemed less optimistic: "It is impossible to set up a foolproof system to prevent suicide bombings," he told the Daily News. "They can only be minimized."
Could an attack against the New York subway system happen? Of course it could. A lot of things could happen. We might be hit by an asteroid, too, but I'm not going to spend my days fretting about it. What's the value of handing Lockheed hundreds of millions for security systems whose only value lies in keeping the population jittery but docile?
Keep this in mind: Statistically, it's much more likely that you'll be killed on the subway by a thug with a knife, a nutcase off his meds, or a train derailment than you will be by a terrorist. Given that, maybe it's time for the MTA to stop wasting that $721 million on false promises. If they dropped the cockamamie bomb-sniffing MetroCard machines and used that money for something worthwhile-like cleaning and lighting the stations, fixing the tracks or improving the PA system-we'd be a whole lot safer in the long run.
Public testing of the new bomb sniffing MetroCard machines begins this Spring. Those tests are being conducted in Baltimore.