Schumer Wants A "No-Ride List" For Our Trains

Waiting for the train (erin*carly's flickr)

Senator Chuck Schumer, who just lurves his Sunday press conferences, yesterday called on the Department of Homeland Security and Amtrak to institute a "no-ride list" to complement the existing airline "no-fly list." His call to action came after files found at Osama bin Laden's compound suggested that Al Qaeda was planning a train attack for the tenth anniversary of 9/11. It is unclear how exactly such a system would be implemented, but Amtrak says it will review the proposal.

This is not the first time that someone has suggested increasing security on Amtrak, which last year carried 28.7 million passengers around the country. The September 11 Commission recommended in 2004 that travelers' names be checked against terror watch lists before they were allowed to board boats and trains, but the idea was never implemented.

Responding to Schumer's call, a Homeland Security official told Newsday that they'd look into it, but that "more than $1.6 billion had been spent on beefing up rail security since 2006, primarily focused on a strong police presence, inspections" and programs like the MTA's "See Something, Say Something" campaign.

According to Schumer, getting Amtrak to use the airline terror watch list could happen at "virtually no extra cost" to the federal government (at the same time he called for increased funding for track inspections and more railway security measures). And we agree that checking ticket purchases and reservations against the watch list just makes common sense. However if the idea is to start checking the ID of every passenger before they enter the train... Schumer may well have a recipe to bring our already slow rail systems to a standstill.

Right now in major stations and terminals like Penn Station, Amtrak passengers have their boarding pass and ID checked before entering the platform and most likely will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. But the nature of the train system, which unlike planes make multiple stops along a route to their destination, would make it incredibly cost inefficient for a cash strapped organization like Amtrak to have a person outside each non-major station checking IDs and tickets. On limited-stop, high-speed trains like the Acela though, we could see an argument for pre-boarding ID checks, but other lines seem a hard sell. As non-driving New Yorkers who actually ride the rails on a semi-regular basis, we hope that Amtrak and and Homeland Security think long and hard before implementing Schumer's proposal.

Part of what we love about riding the train is that we don't have to take our shoes off first.

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By Garth Johnston in News on May 9, 2011 9:02 AM

Comments [rss]

Bob Jones

Zionazis; a word that needs constant use to remind of the true nazis, the ashkenazi!

Never forget

Fofofofofo

I didn't think Al Qaeda would be so sentimental as to celebrate anniversaries.

ANGRYGOD11

Chuck doesn't seem to know trains run on rails. A bomber doesn't ever have to ride a train nor enter a train station to place a bomb somewhere on thousands of miles of unprotected rails.

estragon_nyc

Schumer has now exceeded all my expectations of his stupidity...and believe me, that took some doing. But even a crowbar couldn't pry him out of that seat, dammit.

canofpeas

Schumer is turning out to be quite the little fascist. He should consider moving to Israel with the rest of the zionazis- he could murder a couple of Palestinians and start feeling good about himself again.

Spirit of 76

In younger years, I walked along some railroad tracks out in the sticks far away from the city. They can't protect all of those and it would be easy to tamper with tracks and cause a derailment. Maybe Schumer wants to create a no-walk list. Me, I'd settle for a no political stupidity list.

Fadlo K. Shell

This "no fly/ride list," security theater crap has nothing to do with safety, and is all about harassment. Otherwise there would be random searches required to enter places where many people gather, such as public squares, shopping malls and airline and train terminals.

whitecastlerock

Schumer = waste of taxpayer money

CityFace

This would be dumb. You don't need to get on a train to create a rail disaster. Depressed suicidal people prove that all the time. Time-coordinated suicides by people wearing and carrying signifiers that they were terrorists would halt all train traffic indefinitely. No explosives necessary.

So, obviously what we need is a no-jump list. Anyone considering suicide-by-Amtrak should have their names checked against a terrorist watch list. Easy peasy. Someone get this to Schumer. I feel safer already.

chuzzlewit

amtrak is the one mode of travel left that is actually civilized and pleasant, which i'm assuming is why it's drawing attention from paranoid dipshits who hate to watch things run normally. please leave us the fuck alone!

zevo

this is just the beginning for the TSA to make its transitional move in on all public transportation..

blindmalice

Is there ANYTHING this man wont do to grab media attention?

HughGass

Somebody has to compile a list of stupid sh!t Schumer has come up with from his media attention seeking sunday press conferences. I remember the time he said that glow and the dark dots on people's watches and smoke detectors should be banned after 9/11 because somebody could make a dirty bomb with the radioactive material inside.