Janet Napolitano, the head of Homeland Security, says that increased security measures may have to expand beyond the nation’s airports if we’re ever to fully protect ourselves from evildoers. Napolitano, seen here, told Charlie Rose, of PBS, that the nation’s subways and train depots may be the next target of TSA‘s enhanced efforts. Think about it: every time you hop on the A train in New York City you’d need to pass through one of those full-body scanners or face an enhanced pat-down.
Needless to say, that would be highly impractical.
To her credit, though, Napolitano sorta has a point: nearest I can tell there is nearly no security on the New York City subway and the surrounding regional commuter rails. Think of how many people pass through Grand Central every day coming from Westchester and Connecticut. It’s not like major terrorist attacks haven’t targeted trains before.
But I’m not sure that asking every single person to pass through one of those machines, or going in for an enhanced pat-down, is the best way to go about doing things.
In other TSA news, Ron Paul, the Texas congressman, suggested that people boycott airlines in order to send the message that we, as Americans, aren’t necessarily cool with having some TSA fellow feel up our children in the name of security. These new rules, Paul added, “aren’t making us safer” but do “enhance the power of the state.”
(That’s the problem with all this TSA talk: it can very easily, and very quickly, devolve into conspiratorial flame-outs.)
Incidentally, today is “National Opt-Out Day,” a day in which people have been encouraged to “opt-out” of those full-body scanners. Since I’m within driving distance of my Thanksgiving destination I will not be “opting-out,” but I’m interested in seeing how it plays out. My prediction: today will be just like any other day, and “Opt-Out Day” will be a bust.
Twitter is filed with people talking about “opting-out,” so that’s a way to kill some time.