Anytime I am reviewing the portfolio of a young art school student/aspiring photographer there are always way to many pictures of 1). Trash/broken things/decaying buildings and 2). the New York City subway.
So a blow to US civil liberties will at least help fine art :)
Photographing subways is a test of skill; the lighting is very low, and I am impressed when people get high quality photographs.
(Yes, I took subway photos, but I was in high school and it wasn't the NYC subway - it was Toronto. And they did turn out with very low contrast and quality - but then maybe that was also because I was a really bad photography student.)
So, Baksheesh... yer saying the new rules aren't for security, but rather the advancement of art? ;)
From another article:
Other rules proposed by the Transit Authority include banning people from walking between cars, and turnstile jumping, even if the passenger has a MetroCard.
Sadly, I know the story behind this. It involves a guy I know, with an unlimited metrocard, jumping an uncooperative turnstile as his train was pulling into the station, getting a ticket, and successfully fighting it in court. The way the law/rules are written now, you have to pay the fare - you don't, technichally, have to swipe the card.
You take the cameras away from everyday citizens and then only criminals will have cameras.
-Chuck Heston
While I agree that this trend is disturbing, it is worth point out that the NY ban is merely proposed at this point.
In any case, I'm glad I live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
Cromulent, you don't know how the MTA works.
Saying proposed re: the MTA, is like saying President Bush proposed war with Iraq in August of 2002.
Unfortunately, it appears that most T riders in Boston are for it. Which really surprises me quite frankly.
One more reason not to ride the T. Jesus, people, get your shit together. How an ID check can stop someone from blowing something up I'll never know.
While the camera thing is kinda unenforceable, the no riding between cars thing is fairly easy and could be a bigger pain in the ass, especially if you get on that occasional car with no AC.
You can bet your ass I'm gonna fight this one tooth and nail.
Unfortunately, it appears that most T riders in Boston are for it. Which really surprises me quite frankly.
Because if you routinely ride the subway in a big city, and you know that terrorists have been targeting subways in foreign cities, and you know that your country is a terrorist target, you tend to think about these things.
Anyone who took the subway in New York in the first few weeks after Sept. 11 knows what I'm talking about.
And yet the same folks who are complaining about this would be the first to cry foul if there actually was a terrorist attack and no security measures had been taken beforehand.
Amazing.
Slowly, the US transmogrifies into another Tel Aviv.
Well, at least you've got your very own Lebanon!
And yet the same folks who are complaining about this would be the first to cry foul if there actually was a terrorist attack and no security measures had been taken beforehand.
Bzzz. Wrong. Not me.
Anyone who took the subway in New York in the first few weeks after Sept. 11 knows what I'm talking about.
And yet the same folks who are complaining about this would be the first to cry foul if there actually was a terrorist attack and no security measures had been taken beforehand.
The people complaining about things like the ban on photography include among them a number of people that I am in fairly frequent contact with. (Particularly Gene Russianoff, the official GoTo Guy in the NY Media for anything bad about the subways)
I can assure you, that he most certainly rode the subways in the weeks following 9/11, as did I, and I can assure you that he would not be "the first to cry foul if there actually was a terrorist attack."
Ditto that, uncleozzy.
There's security measures and then there's abject stupidity in the guise of security measures. This is the latter.
And Wolof, let's leave New Jersey out of this. =)
It looks like the terrorists *have* won.
And yet the same folks who are complaining about this would be the first to cry foul if there actually was a terrorist attack and no security measures had been taken beforehand.
Let me call this assertion bullshit. ID checks certainly won't stop someone determined to commit an act of terrorism. Are they going to ban cell phones and walkie-phones as well as requiring ID? It's not like people can't communicate where the checkpoint is and steer one of several potential terrorists towards a station or stop that's not being monitored at that time.
All these ID checks will do is impose cumbersome restrictions on passengers (or would be passengers) who aren't doing anything wrong. And let me ask you - what right do transit cops have to know where people are going and what their business is? Really. That's pretty big brother of them.
I mean jebus, suppose you just want to go the grocery store, but you have some jackasses demanding to know where you're going and why you're on the subway, and causing you to wait around for who knows how long until they work through a random backlogged queue of people. And suppose that if you don't answer their questions exactly as they prefer, or if they don't like you or the way you look, you don't get to ride the subway.
I guarantee you that if they don't have mandatory checkpoints, metal detectors, scanners, and X-RAY machines at EVERY single station, and they don't check EVERY single passenger, EVERY single time, then it's pretty pointless. It's a half-assed implementation, one which protects no-one, and causes plenty of problems for those guilty of nothing.
The solution is for all digital image capture devices to have a backdoor, for security agencies to tap into. The moment something suspicious is flagged by the image recognition software, a human agent checks it out, pinpoints it via GPS, deployment of field operatives gets underway.
What will be considered 'suspicious'? Ah, that's gonna be the tricky part.
I'm with peoplefilter.
The damn pinko lefty.
peoplefilter, why do you hate America?
this just sounds like another way for some politician to make people think the world is safer when actually it's just more annoying. and it will pass, too, because come november nobody wants to be the guy who voted against security, because a vote for increased security is a vote against terrorism. even though it won't do a damn thing.
"vote for me, folks, i'm the one who proposed making it impossible to get to work on time due to security checks, but hey what's being late matter when we're keeping the terrorists off the train? well, as long as they're dumb enough to use their real names, anyway..."
I too am with peoplefilter...and then some.
I think this is ridiculous. I mean, you don't need to be carrying an ID to ride the T - that's half the point. People without licenses ride the T to get around...that's kinda what it's there for.
And mildly off-topic but, this is coming from the same MBTA that wanted to ban live music in the subways because "passengers can't hear special terrorist announcements"... Anyone who's ever been on the T knows you can't understand the damn things anyway! And whatcha gonna do, outlaw headphones too?! Ferchrissakes...
Ugh, I'm just bitter cuz my car's busted and I had to ride the damn thing this morning...How about they work on more pressing issues - like getting those people on the green line to quit picking their noses...?
All these ID checks will do is impose cumbersome restrictions on passengers (or would be passengers) who aren't doing anything wrong. And let me ask you - what right do transit cops have to know where people are going and what their business is? Really. That's pretty big brother of them.
Oh. Right. Because it's not like we live in a country where a cop can stop your car on the road and ask for your identification.
By your logic, it's also pointless to put cops on patrol in heavy crowds because they can't possibly get to every person, and airport security is equally worthless, because they don't check every bag.
Sorry, but I'd rather have some protection than no protection.
And really, a cop asking me for ID before I step onto a subway is not a violation of my civil rights. As you said, most folks aren't doing anything wrong. At worst, it's a minor inconvience for the sake of some added safety.
And one more thing:
I guarantee you that if they don't have mandatory checkpoints, metal detectors, scanners, and X-RAY machines at EVERY single station, and they don't check EVERY single passenger, EVERY single time, then it's pretty pointless.
So it's a cumbersome restriction if there are five cops on a subway platform, but it's not a cumbersome restriction if there is a cop for every man, woman and child looking to board a train?
A very big part of this is realistic applications of limited police manpower and a limited budget. This is a classic problem faced by police departments in cities everywhere.
So let's be cute and tell the NYPD it has to reassign every beat cop to subway platforms, and damn the drugs, assaults, rapes and robberies. Or maybe we should double the police force to 100,000? What's your solution?
Unless you're a nonresident in the US, you're not required to carry ID with you wherever you go. What happens if you want to ride the subway and don't have any ID? You don't get to ride the subway?
And the police aren't the be-all and end-all of security. Maybe the country's employment statistics would be boosted if the Boston subway hired a few hundred trained security guards to survey the stations.
(Actually I don't understand personally what the point of this is -- like many have said asking for ID won't change much. Presumably the point is to compare names on ID to known terrorists, but a terrorist who's going to bomb a subway would be pretty darn stupid to use his real ID.)
de Carabas: a cop asking me for ID before I step onto a subway is not a violation of my civil rights
But it can lead to that, and that exact scenario happened to my now ex-husband (long story follows, set years before 9/11):
NYC Transit Cop sees a hispanic male waiting for a train at the 145th & Broadway station. Asks for ID. He asks why. She (yes, she) tells him to turn around, and he does. She cuffs him. Then she calls for back up. A couple of big burly uniforms come down the stairs, pick him up, throw him into the wall a few times.
The agent in the booth is telling the cops over the loudspeaker "that guy didn't do anything."
The frisk him. Legal ID, no weapons, a few subway tokens, enough cash but not too much cash to be suspicious. In short, they have nothing on him. Notice the old library card from prestigious University and work ID photo of him in suit and tie, working for major NY bank. oops.
Take him to the station. Charge him with turnstile jumping, even though the whole incident took place *outside* the turnstiles. (Turnstile jumping is a misdemeanor, usually handled as a ticket.)
Officer who cuffed him starts complaining that her wrist hurts. Comes back an hour later with her arm in a cast. Turns out that in NY, if an officer is injured during the course of an arrest, they can charge you with assault on a police officer, which is a felony, even if there is no direct relation between your actions and the officer's injury.
Numerous court hearings and about $5,000 in legal fees later, the whole thing goes away. Record expunged, fingerprints returned.
Having the full weight of the government bearing down on you as an individual is a scary thing to experience.
Security checks are profoundly bad idea. And, as Tracicle correctly points out, it's fairly pointless- the subways are way too porous to be effectively secured the way airports are supposed to be.
So the reasons to drop plans for subway security are, in order:
1) No security is better than some security.
2) Having to produce ID, which you do in your car, at your bank, at the airport and at store counters, bars and restaurants when you make credit card purchases, is offensive and a grave threat to civil liberties when it involves trains.
3) A few hundred rent-a-cops would be better, and would bring the nation's unemployment rate down by 0.0000753 percent.
4) In New York, there are three or four bad cops in a police force of 50,000 who will throw you into a wall and charge you with turnstile jumping.
Really, I'm not trying to be an asshole, but I do think, given what happened in Madrid, that there is a very real possibility our subway systems will be attacked. And given that, I really can't see what's so offensive or distasteful about what seems like a (mostly) well-intentioned effort to protect us from something like that.
I really can't see what's so offensive or distasteful about what seems like a (mostly) well-intentioned effort to protect us from something like that
de Carabas, it may be well-intentioned, but it won't do any good. I object to the government chipping away at my civil liberties under the pretext of making us "safer."
I don't mean to be a pessimist, but given the enormity of the subway system, the numbers of exits in any given station, the number of underground tunnels connecting the various subway lines, I simply do not see how it would be possible to effectively secure the New York subways, not without sinking into some vaguely fascist nightmare out of a Philip K. Dick novel, or at least without ruining the utility of the subway system- close down enough exits and tunnels, and you could make it secure, but at the cost of destroying the subway's ability to move people quickly from point A to point B.
I'm afraid that you are right that the subways are a likely target. I just don't think that this is the solution.
Land of the brave secure! Home of the free blind!
I just don't think that this is the solution. Solution to what? securing the subways from any attack at all by any terrorist at any time? There is no solution. The best the good guys could do is to make it as difficult as possible for the ne'er-do-wells, with out adversely impacting the function of the installation. If it is easy access to the subway, then they don't need a plan to access it. If it is dificult, then they need to circumvent or spoof their way through, etc., which requires some planning. Maybe they can catch them during that phase, because the longer they are planning the greater the chance they will be discovered.
Personally, I wouldn't attack subways if I were a terrorist. Why bomb a bunch of tired people? Go for legislature buildings, military installations, stuff that would actually make a difference.
Actually, because I am evil and calous when being hypothetical, I probably would go straight for the throat and poison the water supply of as many major cities as I could simultaneously.
Does this post mean that the FBI will be looking for me now?
But that said - I agree with ambrosia. Checking ID would cause great hassle and harrassment - and hurt a lot of people who don't have drivers' licences (this is public transit we are talking about - a lot of us users don't know how to drive) - though the States is better than Canada in this respect, because they at least make cheap non-Driver ID available.
But the increase in secruity will be negligable. Since even I know how to get fake ID (teenagers, even the not so bright ones) have been doing it for decades), how will this increase security? What they need are people trained to look for suspicious behaviour, and a vigilant response from both security officers and passengers to discarded baggage. We need a populace educated as to what to do if the said bomb does go off, so we don't panic and hurt more people - and maybe there are ways to design subways to be safe in the event of an explosion.
But we also have to face the fact that the world is dangerous - and we can't make it perfectly safe. If people elsewhere in the world can live with bombs and gangs and warlords and malaria and (worst of all) guinea worms, I can live with the chance that a bomb will go off in the subway I am on. Personally, I think the chances of my being finally crushed by those doors as I run to catch the train are much greater.
Personally, I wouldn't attack subways if I were a terrorist. Why bomb a bunch of tired people? Go for legislature buildings, military installations, stuff that would actually make a difference.
You couldn't be more wrong if you wanted to be.
If I were a terrorist, I'd hit a movie theatre on the opening night of a blockbuster. No/minimal security. Just drive up to the main entrance where everyone is waiting in line. click click boom
I'd then (if i were a terrorist) hit a kindergarden or elementary school during lunch or during a event where everyone is in the auditorium. click click boomTerrorists are after mass casualties and the spread of fear. What better way to spread terrorism than by targeting the infidel children? Can you imagine the withdrawal of children from the school systems by cautious parents would have, if not the complete breakdown of the school system as a whole? What better way would there be to spread your message?
For terrorists, the ends justify the means.
when the FBI comes jb, can I hide at your place?
And this.
Coming soon: Guilty until proven innocent.
Bet you are trying to get to your favorite cbs.com page, right?
errr.... that link didn't take me anywhere. What was it about, beeswacky?
oh, and is it bee-swacky, or bees-wacky?
Apologies for the missing link, blograt.
Intended URL: http://www.cbs.news.com/2004/06/08/terror/main621730.shtml -- "Random Searches on Boston Trains", which the article reports the police chief as saying will be in olace by July, in time for the Democratic National Convention.
Have to construe this as an attempt to intimidate delegates as well instill fear in the general public. Hope it backfires.
bravesecure! Home of thefreeblind!