I was going to write about the bizarre decision of the D.C. transit police to institute bag searches on the Metro in response to an alleged terrorism plot by Farooque Ahmed that was always under the complete control of the FBI, but Will Wilkinson beat me to it:
How does this make sense? The feds didn't unveil an unsuccessful terrorist plot. They unveiled a man's willingness to join a fabricated plot. But let us suppose that Mr Ahmed had signed on to an honest-to-goodness mass-murder conspiracy, and that this intrigue is now exposed and its principals rounded up. The chances of an attack are now higher or lower? There is now more or less reason for police to nose through the personal belongings of law-abiding citizens? I say: lower, less. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs seems to suggest as much. "This is another important example of work by the FBI by all levels of our law enforcement and by our national security team to keep this country safe," Mr Gibbs said at a press briefing. If it's working, it's working!
This is basically what happened: Ahmed failed to terrorize anyone, and in response, the transit police decided that it would scare the shit out of commuters by instituting bag searches. A terrorist attack can succeed in terrorizing people even when it fails to kill anyone or even come to actual fruition, only if we decide we want to be terrorized. Maybe there was an additional threat that hasn't been publicly disclosed, but it looks like counterproductive security theater.
