TOPICS
TOPICS
Ridge announces new rail and transit security measures
Homeland Security Department Secretary Tom Ridge announced new federal efforts to tighten security on commuter trains and subways Monday, including a pilot program to screen passenger luggage at rail stations and aboard trains.
The program, which will be run by the Transportation Security Administration, will take place at a single rail station that has Amtrak service, Ridge said at a press conference at the department's Washington headquarters. He said it would allow federal officials to test whether "targeted" baggage screening could work in the rail setting, which has more entry points and is more open than the aviation system.
The project will examine whether people will tolerate more security procedures and if baggage screening is feasible in the rail environment, according to Ridge. "We also know we have a situation where we cannot apply an aviation [security] standard to rails and mass transit," he said. The pilot will begin in late April or early May.
Ridge said both New York City and Washington expressed interest in hosting the pilot. Following the press conference, Richard White, executive director of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit System, said officials had not contacted him about staging the pilot in its Metro subway system.
Ridge also said the department would create a K-9 program, using bomb-sniffing dogs to supplement local law enforcement at transit stations nationwide. This program would draw on the K-9 teams of the Federal Protective Service, a unit within the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with other resources within the department.
Ridge said these initiatives could be paid for through existing resources, and did not announce new grants for commuter rail and transit systems. Earlier Monday, he met with a group of rail and transit officials, including White, to discuss security and funding issues. Public transit systems estimate they need $6 billion to tighten security on their systems, according to a survey by the American Public Transportation Association, a transit group.
COMMENTS
- The writer is correct. You change the dynamic when you change the foreign policy. Huge dollars are not spent when you see the world as it is and not as you want it. GovExec.com reader Posted March 24, 2004 8:04 AM
- Ridge is out in left field again. Security for the rail system does not mean screening all passengers and luggage - that is ridiculous. If I want to take out the rail system I remove or destroy track anywhere in the country. Ridge should be building a system to monitor the track to detect breaks in rails etc. not screening passengers. This guy only can react to terrorist attacks after the fact - he never anticipates them. The tactics employed by the Bush administration and Bush are those of a totalitarian police state and not a democracy. Yet he mouths the democracy concept to everyone else. Freedom is something everyone has to fight for, not just military. Exposure to risk is the cost of democracy. Stop this foolish Homeland Security stuff now before it removes all freedoms in the name of safety. That word has gone out before in Germany and Japan most recently, as well as Rome in the past. GovExec.com reader Posted March 24, 2004 6:59 AM
- The announced plan for new rail and transit security measures are full of good intentions, but a bad idea. There is no data available to suggest this activity would measurably improve safety, or certainly the public would not mind the inconvenience. Does this mean the rail traveling public may no longer carry nail clippers? Perhaps investment in training for existing security personnel along with a proactive effort to check out suspicious activity could actually have a potential for increasing safety in this environment. Random "selection" of law abiding passengers by detaining or rifling through their belongings moves us one step further toward a totalitarian police state and away from the constitutional protections of the bill of rights. It will not measurably increase the safety of the traveler. If the department of homeland security is only interested in providing the public with a false sense of security, I believe there are better ways of wasting citizen's money than trampling more of our liberties. What will be the metric for determining whether the public will tolerate this intolerable activity, can someone just say “no”? The affect of this activity will simply produce further economic damage to an already economically stressed transportation system. The best solution for increasing the safety of the American people (and save them money) is simply to change our interventionist foreign policy. Fred Childress Posted March 23, 2004 2:26 PM
