Okay, so back to the topic: does anyone have details on this search / ID demand plan of MBTA's? What kind of ID is acceptable? What if I refuse to produce it? Can they arrest me for refusing search of my belongings, or will I just get escorted out of the subway? Can they search my bag if I refuse to consent? The public pronouncements have been devoid of any detail that would allow a reasonable picture of how this will work in practice. I can only jump to the cynical conclusion that MBTA is trying to soften up the public, releasing information a tiny bit at a time to defuse criticism.

After all, if at any time I can leave the "implied consent area" that the MBTA seems to think it has in its subway, that doesn't cost me much because plans don't have to be made as far in advance for local travel as they do for air travel. That is, if I get kicked out for refusing to show ID or let them search my bag, I can just jump in a cab and return to the subway on my next trip.

Hey genius, we're talking about subways in Boston in this thread, not airports.

Have anything on-topic to contribute?

If not, then

Buh-bye.

The posts in this thread have been about TSA. You are comparing apples to oranges when you bring up airport security toting submachine guns in Europe. These are the security forces that are present in the aiports for a very real reason. Somehow I don't feel threatened by these people, even if they pack enough fire power to flatten the terminal. They are there for a very good reason and they know the responsibilities that come with the equipment they carry.

The "TSA" counterparts in Europe are always very curtios, I have never met any that have given me half the attitude that I have experienced from TSA. They have superior equipment to that being used here. No need to take the laptops out, for instance.

In a very un-PC comment, I must say, however, that the shoe nazis have succeeded in what the real nazis never did: invade Switzerland. They have a limited bridgehead though, only US bound flights are subject to their treatment. Intra-Europe flights are still being treated in a more humane manner.

The aircraft collisions caused the deaths of those onboard the aircraft and most of those in the floor of the crash zones. That the buildings collasped when perhaps they should have withstood the fires caused the deaths of the others.

Would we be asking for "papers please" on the MBTA if the death toll on Sept. 11th was 300 instead of 3000?

Now, as shown by the stats for gun deaths and car deaths, should we not just confiscate all guns and cars in the USA? I mean we'd save the lives of over 50,000 people a year! Where is your sensitivity to this human impact?

And what about all those fast food joints???

We could save so many lives by burning every McDonald's and Burger King in the US to the ground!!!

Won't someone please think of the children??

It never stops to surprise me, but the tolerance to premature death seems to be very high as long as the deaths occur "once in a while". As soon as there are many in one incident, we tend to get all upset. And the WTC is a prime example of this. In 2001 (the latest year for which CDC has any statistics on its web site) there were 3,454 deaths due to malnutrition!

Imagine that, more people died from not having enough to eat in the richest country of the world, than in WTC! But we are not seeing any proposals to funnel some of the billions of dollars we spend on TSA to a food-aid program, even though we would see a much better return on investment if we did.

Here's the thing. The hijackings were the proximate and actual cause of all the deaths in the WTC. The report you refer to indicates that the buildings performed up to standard.

Why you continue to resist admitting that all of those people were murder victims of terrorism is beyond me. Aside from being inaccurate, it's insulting to suggest that while there were some direct victims, others really died in an accident due to an engineering oversight.

I don't disagree that the stuff in Boston, and airport shoe checks are stupid. Your general argument that the effort and funds could be deployed more effectively holds water completely. I can't, however, see why you get off on insinuating that if any murders occured in the WTC, they were basically by the PANYNJ.

Seriously, it is callous, but, more importantly, it's incorrect.

But it was well known in the building trades that WTC 1 and 2 were marvels of lightweight engineering, based on Yamasaki's triumphant IBM building in Seattle. And lightweight engineering allowed for a huge building to be built relatively cheaply.

(Did you know that until 1990 WTC 1 and 2 had no sprinkler system? Was the building truly strong enough to support the "several 5,000 gallon (18,927 liter) storage tanks" that were added? They weigh 42,500 pounds each!)

Oh, and guess what business the bin Laden family is in; he knew exactly why to choqse WTC 1 and 2 as opposed to other skyscrapers.

OK, I've dug myself into a hole because I posed the question of "what would our reaction to Sept. 11th have been if "only" 300-odd people had died, which might have been the case if the Twin Towers had not fallen. (Kudos to FEMA for a great report BTW). Glad you debated this with me.

Why are we starting the ID checks now? Why not after Egyptair 990 which was also deliberately crashed, but into the Atlantic 100km south of ACK? Why not after the gas attack on the Tokyo subway system?

Why now?

Is it because we understand that aircraft can and do crash, even though we soon after realized that it was a deliberate act of murder by the (possibly-fundamentalist) pilot?

Or is it because we can accept losing 200-300 souls in a split-second, but somehow not 3,000 in 2 hours?

P.S. All 19 of the fundamentalists who caused the events of September 11th, including the collapse of WTC 1 and 2 were carrying ID and would not have been discernable to the typically-equipped MBTA police officer. (Two of them were listed in the San Diego phonebook!)

As others have stated, this is all for show.

Back to the topic at hand...

given the subway is considered a public transportation system, if you refuse to identify yourself or more specifically, answer questions about where you are going and what you are doing, what are the repercussions from that - could you be banned from the subway? arrested? How far do they plan on taking this?

Now, as far as comparing WWII and today - given the very nature of freedom and the lives of hundreds of millions of people were at stake - a loss to the Axis would have ended human life on earth as we knew it, there is no question that personal sacrifice and giving up certain freedoms during this period were necessary and a burden shared by democratic people all over the world. Even Benjamin Franklin would have given his OK on this.

Regardless of how many times L'il Bush repeats it - world terrorism does not represent a threat to the very nature of our society and world democracy. It is a cancer which must be dealt with and rooted out, but not at the loss of our freedom and rights - else the terrorists will have accomplished their goals without firing another shot. I am for doing what's necessary to destroy terrorism, but not at the loss of freedoms and rights, especially when curtailing freedoms has as little to do with terrorism as much as it has to do with people like Ashcroft, Perle, and Rumsfield using these times as an excuse to push their own personal anti-freedom agendas. Living in a free society like ours entails risk - and as Spiff pointed out, you need to accept that. I accept the added risk. European and Asian societies have lived with terrorism and bombings for years and never resorted to what has been going on in America during the last few years. Only recently, at the lead and encouragement of the US Government, have certain nations like the UK with it's lapdog leadership, begun experimenting to see how far the envelope could be pushed on Government invasions of personal privacy and freedoms. Ben Franklin would NOT approve.