Wall Street on a Weekend

[OrdinaryTa]

Wall Street on a weekend used to be so quiet that a retail securities company once filmed a lion coming up out of the subway and walking down the street. These days everything is blocked off with security barriers, checkpoints, police dogs and metal detectors. I saw helmeted cops in flak jackets carrying automatic weapons.

The New York Stock Exchange is especially well guarded. No truck is going to pull up in front and destroy it like the UN building in Baghdad. But I wonder how much of this this is just for show. If terrorists want to take down the stock exchange, they aren't limited to crude methods like blowing up a truck. Besides, the record keeping is done far away, and the terrorists would know that.

When I worked in the World Trade Center I remember that the security was annoyingly obtrusive. After the bombing in 1993, security was beefed up against attacks from individuals. We were safe from what one person could do, but I remember hoping not to be there when another real attack would come. Fortunately for me, that's how it worked out.

Are we really any safer from terrorism when we mount a big display against what the public pereceives as threatening? For example, airport security requires a chef to stow his knives in his luggage, but unscreened $6.25/hr. baggage handlers have access to the belly of the plane up until the last minutes before departure.

My question is whether the high profile security on Wall Street is there just because it looks good. A real attack will require more sophistication than a truck bomb, and it seems that our enemies have shown themselves to be smarter than we were told.