Begin forwarded message: From: Denise Caruso <caruso@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: July 22, 2005 11:48:57 AM EDT To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [IP] more on NYC to search transit riders' bags -- but ... Dave,I stayed up way too late last night reading the fascinating piece in the latest New Yorker (July 25) about NYPD's response to terrorism. It's by William Finnegan. I *highly* recommend this to people on the list who are interested in this issue. It's not as black and white as it sounds; I was certainly surprised by it.
The piece isn't available online at the moment, but here's a Q&A with Finnegan:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/050725on_onlineonly01At the risk of spoiling the punchline, the end of the interview encapsulates some of the ambiguity of the issue -- certainly the ambiguity Finnegan feels about the situation, at least:
"That said, life in New York City has developed a more surveilled, paranoid, almost militarized tenor than it had before 9/11, and a good amount of that can be put down to the police, I think, and to programs like Hercules. Some people, I gather, find the sight of police teams in body armor and combat helmets, carrying assault rifles, comforting. I don't. There's an element of theatre to a lot of counterterror work, and it's not particularly edifying theatre. It's endless vigilance, no victory. Success means nothing happens. Such anti-drama is, of course, the essence of prevention."
Ack. Wake me up, please. It seems I'm having a very long bad dream. Blearily, Denise
Begin forwarded message: From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: July 22, 2005 9:49:56 AM EDT To: Charles Pinneo <pinneo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>Cc: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>, Lauren Weinstein <lauren@xxxxxxxxxx>Subject: Re: [IP] NYC to search transit riders' bags -- but ... How much useful "intelligence" you're going to collect looking in truly "random" people's bags in the NYC subway system (ever ridden that system? I have) is highly, uh, questionable. Now, if the real purpose is -- as you seem to imply -- to have an excuse for warrentless searches for people with certain racial or ethnic characteristics, and nothing whatever to do with real point-of-contact safety (in contrast to the stated purpose), then this is best defined as an attempted end-run around current law. If the authorities feel that they need to search the bags of people who look like they might be members of a certain religion, then let's have them come out and say it, have the appropriate public debate, and decide as citizens if that is a direction we really want to take this country. Enough of treating us like children with fairy stories of "random" searches on massive transit systems that will somehow protect us. --Lauren-- - - -Lauren, Common sense says that random searches are intelligence gathering ina cat and mouse game. The more we know about terrorist activities themore advantage we have against them. In the second world war the Nazis never found out that the allies had the enigma machine. Do you think the police are going to tell the public what they are really looking for? Hopefully they don't. We're all just guessing what will be found and what the outcome will be. Charlie Pinneo pinneo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Jul 21, 2005, at 5:36 PM, David Farber wrote:Begin forwarded message: From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@xxxxxxxxxx> Date: July 21, 2005 4:30:23 PM EDT To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx Cc: lauren@xxxxxxxxxx Subject: NYC to search transit riders' bags -- but ... Dave, As noted in: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/21/nyregion/21cnd-security.html? pagewanted=2&hp NYC is about to start "random" bag checks of transit system riders. A number of questions immediately spring to mind. Will the inspections be truly (pseudo)-"random" in a mathematical sense, or random in terms of "White-skinned all-American looking males are rarely 'randomly' selected"? What happens if inspectors find contraband or suspicious radical materials during their searches (e.g., printouts of your IP postings from this mailing list?)Authorities say that persons who do not wish to be inspected will beallowed to leave. Uh, does this mean they can just move onward to some other station where the "random" selection isn't likely to hit them the next time? Or will they be followed, tracked, and otherwise become a "person of interest" by virtue of refusing a search? And most depressingly, exactly how will this policy prevent suicide bombers (presumably a key demographic) from exploding their payloads in the terminals prior to or during inspections, or bombers in general simply shifting from mass transit to any number of other "soft" targets around the metropolitan area (sidewalks? stores? shopping centers? Times Square?) Of course, this is the same NYC where authorities tried to ban cameras on the transit system -- another brilliant security move. You can't blame authorities for trying. They are desperatelyattempting to make people *feel* that they are safer, even when they know that their efforts in the face of such asymmetric threats are adrop in the bucket. Even London with its vast camera-basedsurveillance infrastructure, is learning that while such systems maybe useful for after-the-fact analysis, they are largely impotent to deter attacks overall.The powers-that-be know all this. The sooner that they start talking straight to citizens about the realities of these situations and the forces that create people willing to commit such attacks on innocentpersons, the sooner we may all be able to work toward genuine solutions that still preserve our basic values. --Lauren--
--
'Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.'
-- Philo of Alexandria
Denise Caruso
http://hybridvigor.org
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