Insecurity

I'd planned to post an entry on Thursday after the failed bombings in London. But this week has been super busy at work (I was in the office from 10am to 11pm Friday with just 2 short breaks to run out and upstairs for lunch and dinner).
I never got a break to post until today. But there is still evidence of the city's reaction to London's attempted attacks throughout New York. For the first time, I noticed a police officer stationed on the sidewalk between the stairs to the subway station and the entrance to my office. There were cops on the subway platform and posters announcing that "As of July 23, all large backpacks and bags are subject to search." (Though I have yet to witness an actual search, except on TV). The ACLU is all up in arms about the move, as expected, but I think it's a good idea. Mayor Bloomberg says the searches are "random"--every 20 people or so. Fine. At this point, I'd support airport-like security in which every bag is searched or X-rayed at every subway station. Though that's unlikely anytime soon.
In 2002, New York's Metro Transit Authority said it was committing nearly $600 million to improve the security of the NYC subway and rail system. But as of March, only $30 million had been spent, and nearly all of that on consultants and additional study, according to one of the subway unions.
Frankly, even if $600 million was spent, it wouldn't come close to the federal funds that have been spent protecting our planes. An American Public Transportation Association analysis found that, since 9/11, the federal government has spent $18 billion on aviation security, compared to only $250 million on security for mass transit nationwide (which includes, subways, rail and buses).
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff tried to justify the decision by claiming that aviation disasters would result in more casualties than a mass transit attack. "The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people," he said. "A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people."
Obviously Chertoff has never ridden in a fully loaded NYC subway. If he did (and I truly hope he does), he might rethink his estimates. If a bomb went off in a subway car at a station during rush hour, there would easily be several hundred--if not 1000s--of casualties.
But while Democrats--particularly those from New York and New Jersey--criticized Chertoff's ignorant (and inaccurate) explanation, senators ended up rejecting one proposal to spend more than $1 billion in federal funds on mass transit security measures, favoring instead a competing $200 million proposal (though that was better than the initial plan, which would have actually cut spending on mass-transit security from $150 million to $100 million). In April, William Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association, testified before a Senate committee that transit agencies around the country had identified more than $6 billion in transit security needs.
So where does that leave the estimated 29 million people who take commuter trains, subways and buses each day in the United States (one third of them in New York City)? Out of luck. Or, more precisely, unfairly dependent on luck--that the terrorist will be the 20th person to pass the police inspector, not the 19th. That the detonator will go off, but the bomb won't. That a passenger might notice something suspicious and report it before the potential murderer boards the bus or the subway car. That an unattended bag will be whisked away by bomb squads before it can explode. That we won't be on the car or bus that's targeted.
That's not what homeland security should be. "Homeland security" should not depend on an astute passenger, or an overly cautious cop--or luck.
I'd hoped that the London attacks would serve as a wake-up call for Chertoff and for Congress. The London "tube" system was more secure than our system is because British authorities have had decades of experience dealing with threats to the public transit system by IRA terrorists. And it's been breached twice now.
What will it take for our government to realize that we are equally--if not more--vulnerable here? I hope it's not an attack on our own soil.