{"id":2520,"date":"2005-07-21T16:13:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-21T16:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=2520"},"modified":"2018-02-14T09:54:40","modified_gmt":"2018-02-14T15:54:40","slug":"what-we-have-here-is-a-failure-to-imaginate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2005\/07\/21\/what-we-have-here-is-a-failure-to-imaginate\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Have Here Is A Failure To Imaginate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DC officials have a rather silly idea about how to deal with potential suicide bombers in the Metro stations: <a href=\"http:\/\/usatoday.printthis.clickability.com\/pt\/cpt?action=cpt&#038;title=USATODAY.com&#038;expire=&#038;urlID=14894531&#038;fb=Y&#038;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fprintedition%2Fnews%2F20050720%2Fa_subways20.art.htm&#038;partnerID=1660\" target=\"_new\">random backpack searches<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nSubway riders may face random police checks of their bags under a security measure being considered in the nation&#8217;s capital, the latest city to look for ways to deter terrorism on rail systems.<\/p>\n<p>No decision has been made on the idea for the city&#8217;s 106-mile Metrorail system, and the logistics would be difficult. But \u201cit would be another tool in our security toolbox,\u201d says Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>All right, class, let&#8217;s hit the highlights of how this would not work:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If the random searches occur in crowded stations or, heaven forfend, crowded trains, what&#8217;s the difference of detonating the backpack on schedule or when the Metro cop says, &#8220;Hey, you!&#8221;?  Not much to a suicide bomber.\n<li>Fine, you say, search all backpacks before people get into the system.  Capital idea!  As in <i>waste of capital<\/i> except for the new TSA hires for screening backpacks who will draw new salaries and government benefits.\n<p>But when you look at an airport, a subway, or other mass transit system, you have two locations where passengers are grouped and vulnerable: In the little metal tubes, and <i>in the queues<\/i>.  Adding a new queue checkpoint where <i>everyone<\/i> regardless of train, plane, or bus has to crowd together will give terrorists and malcontents a fatter opportunity to wreak their havoc and up their body counts with a bomb.<\/p>\n<li>Searching backpacks won&#8217;t stop bombers wearing bomb belts.  Or bomb shoes.  Or whatever other nefarious creativities will arise to subvert the check and balance mechanisms put in place to deal with a very specific threat.<\/ul>\n<p>The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is on the cusp of creating yet another perpetual inconvenience for temporary appearance of security.<\/p>\n<p>At worst, these measures will be ineffective or even more dangerous than the current situation, and at best will only send the bad guys to blow something else up.<\/p>\n<p>But at least the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority will have <i><b>done something!!!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"red\"><b>UPDATE:<\/b><\/font>  As a story seen on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.outsidethebeltway.com\/archives\/11398\" target=\"_new\">Outside the Beltway<\/a> indicates, New York will <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/transit_security;_ylt=AsAEb0_bvyn6ijkhTr16gkas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--\" target=\"_new\">begin random searches<\/a>.  I hate to be the first cop to try to search a suicide bomber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DC officials have a rather silly idea about how to deal with potential suicide bombers in the Metro stations: random backpack searches: Subway riders may face random police checks of their bags under a security measure being considered in the nation&#8217;s capital, the latest city to look for ways to deter terrorism on rail systems. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19516,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520\/revisions\/19516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}