Op-Ed; New measures give illusion of safety

THOMAS M. KEANE, JR.
845 words
12 July 2002
Boston Herald
All Editions
023
English
(Copyright 2002)

From Tom Ridge to guard desks at office buildings, from color- coded terrorist alerts to checkpoints on the Fourth of July, we now live in a crazy-quilt world of measures intended to make us feel safe.

Is it working? The John Hancock Tower has closed its observation deck. The Prudential's Skywalk remains open. Fenway Park searches everyone coming to the ballgame, confiscating bottles of water, Coke and Sprite (whose principal threat, of course, is that they compete with the concessions inside the park). Meanwhile, anyone can walk into a movie theater.

After Sept. 11, most downtown office buildings decided to beef up their security. But there's no consistent strategy in use, with wildly varying procedures at different buildings.

Some have tried to make themselves into virtual fortresses. That's true at One Boston Place, where a team of security guards demands an ID from everyone who enters. No one is permitted to the elevators unless a tenant within the building confirms the visitor is expected.

Yet, around the corner, at One State Street, the lobby is empty and anyone can walk in.

Exchange Place makes every visitor get a temporary identification badge. But at 50 Congress St. - literally next door - anyone off the street can walk in and freely go to all 10 floors. At Center Plaza, which backs up to the Suffolk County Courthouse, there is a guard's desk but anyone is able to go up unchallenged.

The most common, and oddest, of the new security measures is a demand that those in the building sign out when leaving after hours. I have exited under a variety of assumed names, including most of the better-known Disney characters, and have yet to be questioned. It's hard to figure out the point of the exercise. Does any one really believe that terrorists, having engaged in a criminal act, would then politely give their names as they walked out the door?

Government buildings aren't much better. City Hall has recently installed metal detectors. But at the Transportation Building, home of such critical state agencies as the MBTA and Mass. Highway, a visitor simply needs to show an ID. On one recent visit, a guard asked me, "Where are you going?" Not expecting the question, I stammered for a moment and finally said, "Seventh floor." That was good enough for him and I was allowed to wander where I pleased.

And then there's the Boston Public Library. Immediately after the terrorist attacks, the library established tough new security measures. Tables were set up at entrances and inspectors wearing clear latex gloves would sort through purses and backpacks.

But now the tables have disappeared and the inspectors are gone. When asked, a security guard (sensibly checking patrons as they to make sure books aren't being stolen) explains unhelpfully that the entrance guards were a "temporary measure."

Still, as haphazard as it may be, all of that security is coming at a high and increasingly disturbing cost. Some of those costs can be measured in dollars and cents; others are more psychic. The guards stationed in lobbies and entranceways are expensive, of course. Moreover, the intrusiveness of security measures imposes its own burdens. Downtown workers now figure they need to allot more time when going from one meeting to another. Jersey barriers around buildings create a sense of a country under siege. And it is no small irony that this year's July Fourth celebrations of America's freedoms were the most tightly controlled they have ever been.

And for what? In the wake of the recent shootings at El-Al's ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport, one, almost reflexive, response was that the tough security zones at airport gates should be pushed out even farther: Anyone who enters the terminal should be searched - or perhaps even anyone driving into the airport. The idea was that just a little bit more security and the problem never would have occurred.

Not true. Someone hell-bent on attacking an airline could inevitably find a way, if not by shooting agents at an airport ticket counter, then by going to the downtown offices of the airline, or even by following employees as they go home from work. In truth, even a mildly inventive terrorist can dream up lots of ways to create havoc - and that's particularly the case if the would- be terrorist is willing to lose his life in the process.

Proof? Look at Israel, perhaps the most security-conscious nation on Earth. All of its labors notwithstanding, citizens regularly lose their lives to suicide bombers.

All of which suggests that we need to rethink the value of our efforts, both local and national, to make ourselves more secure. Having guards, checkpoints and searches everywhere may give us the ILLUSIONof safety. But as the killings in Los Angeles proved, they do not, in fact, make us safe.

Tom Keane can be reached at tom@tomkeane.com.

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