Transit gets funds to fight terrorism | Seattle Times Newspaper — Yes we must protect Seattle from the terrorism threat! Duck and cover! Duck and cover!
As transit systems expand, local police are getting a $1.9 million federal stimulus grant to add anti-terrorism officers.
The timing is good because the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel is now open 20 hours a day — to serve the new Sound Transit Link trains — instead of closing at 7 p.m., said Jim Jacobsen, deputy manager for King County Metro Transit.
Found by Aric Mackey.
Yeah, how dare Seattle try to obtain preventative and reasonable funding for a legitimate security concern. Sure Ramzi Yousef was captured right near Seattle 10 years ago trying to sneak across the border with hundreds of pounds of explosives. Sure Seattle was featured on a captured al Qaeda computer as a possible American target for terrorist activities. Sure the new light rail system is just the kind of high visibility system that a terrorist might target. But it’s dumbass Seattle! Let’s make fun of the thought that there might be some reasonable need out there!
Come on doofus; this isn’t some police department in rural iowa using homeland security funding to get an unneeded armored personnel carrier, this is a reasonable response to a fairly remote but nonetheless real threat. To post this story with the underlying assumption that it’s some kind of ridiculous story on it’s face shows the poster to be a moron.
Sounds like creative financing to me.
If Homeland Security (a misnomer) gives them the money, who can blame them for using the money where it’s needed, like replacing that very old and “insecure” trolley…
Wow, I didn’t realize Seattle was a hot bed of terrorist activity. Too much coffee…
later in the story…
“Fifteen transit systems will share a total $78 million, with nearly half going to New York City, a federal announcement said.”
Seattle is a big city, why do the great people of Iowa have to pay for transit cops in Seattle? Image this is but one of hundreds of programs/grants/handouts just like this. Now you see how we are 57 TRILLION dollars in the hole.
Any city, including Seattle, is a potential target for terrorism, right?
But I seriously doubt that “hardening” targets works because the terrorists just hit something else.
We’ve spend a gazillion dollars on airline security so the terrorists will hit a chemical plant near a big city. If you harden the chemical plant, the terrorists bomb the train hauling sodium hypochlorite or ammonia uphill from a big city. If you harden the trains…
There is no end to it.
Money would be much better spent to identify, infiltrate and monitor terrorist groups.
REAL terrorist groups, BTW. And monitor, not agitate.
Very simply. Retire, and move to Boise, ID. I will.
They may just need some security people to deal with purse snatchers and such.
Of course it isn’t like God has signed a contract to prevent terrorists from attacking at this unprotected location either. They’re still around and they still have to take over the world and impose Islamic law.
Any additional security measures cost money, but there are systems and preventions that can be built into any system to help with security. Safeguards needn’t just be physical security measures, either, but also electronic measures, safety training, crisis management planning, and all sorts of other things that provide a benefit to the city and the system even if there is never a terrorist plot. I understand if you’re against these kinds of grants in general, but it’s silly to ridicule the very real security concerns of a large city, even Seattle.