Security at all costs

February 7, 2008

Security at all costs

New Operation to Put Heavily Armed Officers in Subways, the headline says. It begins,

In the first counterterrorism strategy of its kind in the nation, roving teams of New York City police officers armed with automatic rifles and accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol the city’s subway system daily, beginning next month, officials said on Friday.

Under a tactical plan called Operation Torch, the officers will board trains and patrol platforms, focusing on sites like Pennsylvania Station, Herald Square, Columbus Circle, Rockefeller Center and Times Square in Manhattan, and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

Officials said the operation would begin in March.

Financing for the program will be funneled to the Police Department and will come from a pool of up to $30 million taken from $153.2 million in new federal transit grants to the state.

Are these “federal transit grants” meant to scare the bejesus out of ordinary citizens? Or could the money be put to better use, such as improving the subway experience in ways other than fright?

Why garb New York’s finest with the favorite fashion accessory of terrorists themselves?

Via Bruce Schneier.

problems

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Doc Searls

3 responses to “Security at all costs”

Zo

February 9, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Well, the bejesus is scared out of me.

How many of the nut cases who think up these plans for our “safety” will be gone with the, dare I call it, current administration?

Operation Torch, my ass. Don’t they see it’s a whole new world–we don’ need no steekeeng officers, no bomb-sniffing dogs–we need to sit down and talk on the world stage.

I’m tellin’ you, this militaristic crap won’t fly when today’s kids, who are already twittering across time and space, grow up. It also won’t fly because it’s primarily testosterone-driven–which is why I want to see Obama elected. (!)

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Doc Searls

February 9, 2008 at 7:16 pm

Yep. BO… jeez, I just spelled his initials.. what’s his middle name? Anyway, Barack has testosterone fer-sure. It probably drives him as much as the next XY pol. I gather that it just doesn’t make him paranoid, which is what you need to build out the National Security State.

Unrelated: I once had a talented and unusually strong (as in, doesn’t take shit off anybody) woman working for me. Once when somebody asked her what made her that way, she said, “Bigger ovaries.”

Anyway, yeah. It’s nuts.

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Roland Hesz

February 9, 2008 at 7:53 pm

Well, it will be scary. Like New York was under occupation.
I hope it won’t happen, or at least it will stop soon.

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Security at all costs

3 responses to “Security at all costs”

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