eturowski

Not immediate, BTW. Supposedly happening on 9/11.

From NBC New York:

Feds Ask for Vigilance on Trains Based on Info from Bin Laden Compound

GUWonder

If OBL were smart, he'd have created a bunch more dummy plots to be discovered ... all in order to get us to waste ever more money on mythical plots. As anyone with a brain should know, the country eagerly wastes money reacting to even failed attempts at who knows what (e.g. the "underwear bomber", the "shoe bomber", the "bottle bomber(s)" that didn't even have tickets, the "printer cartridge bomber", etc), so why not even more dummy plots.

He was about bleeding us financially -- in life and perhaps even in death -- after his effort to make isolationists out of Americans failed. Can't say that he's been a complete failure even in death.

It's not like the government is unable to waste a couple trillion dollars reacting to everything and nothing at all -- courtesy of the public's apathy, ignorance and/or paranoia. The TSA has never been satisfied with its budget being only as much as it is; nor has the TSA ever been satisfied with being restricted to passenger screening at airports.

Pesky Monkey

The information they found had to do with tampering with the tracks, not the trains. Thus, riders should be sure to walk the tracks ahead of the train the day before riding.

GUWonder

"See something, say something."

nachtnebel

now the TSA will be screening train passengers for any device that could be used to remove track spikes.

I wonder how much of this is being used to put pressure on the AmTrak PD chief who booted TSA's sorry butt off AmTrak property...

Mabuk dan gila

You know. I do believe all kinds of important intel will be derived from the raid. But I do not believe OBL wrote up a detailed terror plot and saved it in his My Documents folder as Secret_Terror_Plot.doc . I'm guessing it will take allot more work than that.

Quite candidly, I believe the US government planned a train harassment campaign already and is lying when they say they are rolling it out now in response to discovering Bin Laden was planning terror attacks.

AlmostThere

Of course, the only recent domestic incident of this type of attack might be blamed on homegrown nutbars.

cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Pa...ona_derailment

alanR

Given that reports say he lived in the same cave - sorry room - for 5 years without leaving it, couldn't play Call of Duty, ring Hot Asian Babes or watch The Wire I suspect he spent his time thinking of Evul Plots.

LuvAirFrance

Al Qaeda plotting against US rail says computer data found in Bin Laden's compound. TSA gropes now to spread to rail terminals? Discuss.

Combat Medic

Except that the information on OBL's computers had nothing to do with a passenger but with messing with the tracks. So yes, I expect the TSA to enhance their fondling of six year olds.

flyinbob

OBL being dead should change nothing. Trains are still trains. No more or less dangerous than before. There was mention of wanting to do something on trains on 9/11/11, but absolutely no evidence anything happened in that direction. If the TSA uses this as an excuse to expand their empire I think it will, and certainly should, backfire, as most people still haven't been exposed to the abuses of this disgrace of an agency. Hopefully people who ride trains will react to them like... well, people who ride trains. GET 'EM!

nbs2

I, for one, welcome our new rail overlords.

I've always wanted to see what happens when a screener gets hit by a train, and give them 4 minutes of molesting before someone shows me.

Global_Hi_Flyer

The fact that the government is now publicly discussing a threat to rails is one way of "softening" the public to accept invasive airport-style security on trains.

celticwhisper

More or less the same thing that happens when a plague rat gets hit by a train. Difference is that I'd feel sympathy for the plague rat. The plague rat never fondled me or my loved ones, and plague rats don't use FUD to justify further government expenditures in order to preserve their paychecks. Plague rats are honest about what they want - eat, sleep, screw, spread plague wherever they can. TSOs do mostly the same but they lie about where they plan on spreading their plague of security theatre. And they lie about why, and how much it will cost, and how much good it will do. And when they go back on their word, they claim that there was no such word and that their current actions were always the plan all along. I'd feel bad for the plague rat - it wandered into a world of technology and machinery it couldn't possibly understand and paid a steep price for its honest mistake. The TSO I'd just want scraped up, bagged, and carried away as soon as possible.

I'll be very interested in hearing Amtrak's response to this. I applaud them for putting the TSA in its place once and I hope they will have the spine to do it again. And again. However many times it takes.

The really interesting part will be Amtrak's response after an attack is successfully pulled off. I would hope that they'd stand fast and say "No, we'll tend to our own problems with the aid of real law-enforcement officers." My worry is that because Amtrak is partly government-operated (isn't it? Something to do with controlled monopolies?), the government will force the disgusting, worthless and unjustifiable terrorist group that is the TSA upon Amtrak.

If that happens, I only hope that the people wake up and realize that the only way TSA is going away is if we push back against them at every level. And we will no longer be able to afford the luxury of the mentality of "It's not the little guys' fault, they're just trying to feed their families." We're going to have to make lives as miserable as possible for each and every last organism that collects a paycheck from the TSA, no matter what its rank.

LuvAirFrance

Can't exactly address the difficulties, but I think most western nations are eventually going to have to address access to our territory by people with jihadist sentiments. I feel our borders are entirely too open. The poor and huddled masses are no LONGER longing to be free. Some at least are longing to assist the people in our country who don't like anyone being free.

Beyond that, free practice of religion should no longer include reviling the people and culture of the United States. Can't prevent it in Yemen, but I never understand why UK and the United States tolerates the blatant crying of "fire" in a crowded theater which is the stock in trade of radical religionists of all kinds. I don't mind attacks on the government. No problem there. But "Americans should be killed" makes a mockery of the intentions of the Founding Fathers. We can't raise them from the dead to ask them, but I find it a no-brainer that recruitment of impressionable youth to commit religion-based homicide is NOT "the free pracitce of religion". If those doing it were selling cocaine, running rackets, or promoting fascism with homicidal conspiracies, would we really extend the umbrella of sacred free speech to them? I hope not. Same with these people who come to America and try to recruit Somali teenagers to return to the homeland and join Al Shabbab.

Bombs don't kill people, terrorists setting off bombs do. Trying to protect every inch of rail in the country makes no sense if no effort is made to exclude those motivated is made first. And I'm never gonna accept the "it can't be done". How many things have we done where someone said we couldn't?