The NY Times follows up its article about the death of an Hiu Lui Ng while in detention. The engineer who left Hong Kong at 17 overstayed his visa (his U.S.-citizen wife was trying to get him a green card), Ng was "swept into the immigration detention system" last year. His family contends his pleas for medical help were ignored for months until he died days later discovering he had a fractured spine and cancer throughout his body. Another detainee said when Ng was examined by a nurse, "She came out laughing and saying he was faking." There are calls to reform detention centers's medical care, but Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said, "Whether it’s a state prison, federal prison, you’re going to get a certain number of deaths." City Room has details on how to help the Ng family. more ›

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced New York City will receive $153 million - up from last year's $61 million - in transit security grants. Wow - all we can do is remember Chertoff's 2005 remark, when trying discussing how security funding would be allocated, "The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first." more ›

President Bush submitted a budget proposal to Congress this week that involved dramatic cuts to the city's anti-terrorism funding. "The plan would eliminate programs for port security, transit security and local emergency management operations in the next budget year." Well, why would a low-priority target like NYC need all that money anyway? Oh wait, we remember! It was hard not to see this coming, though. more ›

Even though he has amended his plan to give illegal immigrants the opportunity to get driver's licenses, Governor Spitzer can't make everyone happy. more ›

There was a suspicious package in Times Square this afternoon. The NYPD shut down Times Square briefly as they investigated the object at 42nd and 7th Avenue. And the package turned out to be a red backpack forgotten by its Brooklyn owner. D'oh! more ›

Yesterday, two cars full of gasoline and nails were found near London's Picadilly Circus. The car bombs were defused, and British authorities determined that the two vehicles were linked, which is apparently an al Qaeda tactic. Had the bombs gone off, the Post reports "security experts said that if the car bombs found yesterday had been ignited, they would have created enormous fireballs, followed by shock waves forming a killing zone at least 400 yards in diameter." more ›

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Concerned about a reduction in federal anti-terrorism funds, governors Eliot Spitzer of New York and Jon Corzine of New Jersey held a press conference yesterday at the Hoboken Terminal to urge Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to not reduce funds. Federal counter-terrorism aid to New York City decreased by almost half last year, while in New Jersey aid to six northern counties was increased but funding was slashed for the rest of the state. more ›

They say New York is home to a million stories, and so far this year, we've published 7021 of them here on Gothamist. So in case you missed any of those, let's take a little stroll back in time, and review the most significant stories the past 12 months, shall we? Here's part one of a semi-chronological look at 2006; part two will go up tomorrow: more ›

Remember how this summer, the Department of Homeland Security reduced the amount of anti-terror funding NYC would get? Sure, NYC was still getting most of the funding, but funds were being increased in less risky areas with, well, influential politicians. And then the press had a field day with how Homeland Security didn't think there were any national monuments or major buildings at risk? And then Homeland Security claimed that NY State and NYC didn't file their request properly? more ›

New York politicians on the Hill are doing their happy dance: The Department of Homeland Security will give $26 million in port funding for this year, which the NY Post reports is a 400% increase over last year's port funding. Remember how earlier this summer the DHS released it/s budget, and New York City's (and DC's funding) was cut by 40%? Granted, the overall DHS budget was lower, but when you drastically cut back on two big terror targets, people wonder what's going on. more ›

- The DHS tried not to be political about things!Okay, many of these points are fair, but we do think that when the city pays about $10.9 billion more in federal taxes than we get back from federal spending, our agencies needs more resources. And Gothamist thinks it's totally fair for our politicians and newspapers to make a big deal about the cut in funding, as getting 40% less than last year (yes, yes, other cities are getting less) is news. If anything, Chertoff's duty as the Secretary of Homeland Security is to really convince the President of how important the funding is, and then have the President push his Republican-led Congress to help out Homeland Security initiatives more. more ›

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he spoke to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Thursday night and told him "for sure" that he disagreed with the urban area funding. On his radio show, the Mayor said, "I just think the ways they went about it was wrong. I think some factual things were wrong -- forget about the fact that they didn't have the right number of financial institutions or didn't know there were any significant targets in New York City -- just the quality of the report." (You can download an MP3 on the show here.) At any rate, Bloomberg and Chertoff plan to speak again on Monday, which makes Gothamist think some city staffers are working overtime this weekend. more ›

As New York state and city politicians attack the Department of Homeland Security over cutting the funds NYC gets for anti-terrorism efforts, the DHS has been fighting back by saying that New York City's proposal wasn't well-prepared. The NY Times writes, "Federal officials said yesterday that the city had not only done a poor job of articulating its needs in its application, but had also mishandled the application itself, failing to file it electronically as required, instead faxing its request to Washington." Ha! NY state and city officials say that, in fact, they did electronically submit the application - but you know that there's probably sniping about so-and-so's aide or intern screwing things up. But In fact, NYC, though in the "top 25% of urban areas at risk," was rated in the bottom 25% for the "quality of its application"! Our politicians, though, are saying that the DHS directed money to cities where reelections were coming up in the fall. The Daily News has a feature on Tracy Henske, the DHS official who "signed off on the cuts" - she's from Missouri and Missouri cities got increases in funding! more ›

The Department of Homeland Security cut the yearly antiterrorism budget for the "Urban Area Security Initiative" and New York and DC got the shaft, with their funds cut by 40%. New York City, which had received $207.6 million last year, will now get $124.5 million (DC went from $77.5 million to $46.5 million), while cities like Omaha, Louisville, Atlanta, and Jacksonville are getting more; ost notably, Jersey City/Newark got a 44% increase in funds, for a total of $34 million (probably for port security). Naturally, NY State politicians freaked out, with Representative Peter King calling this "a knife in the back to New York" and fuming, "They have cut $80 million in funding to NYC. Meanwhile, they gave a $21 million limousine contract to the company that was driving pimps and prostitutes around." Now, Gothamist understands that the overall budget was cut and the cities that had been getting lots of money before would take a hit. And, naturally, it's important to make sure cities like Chicago and LA gets the aid they need. But Omaha? more ›

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Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that a Homeland Security representative would be placed in New York in order for the police and feds to have "one voice." This move is seen as a way to address the should we freak out or not subway threat two weeks ago. Hmm, a couple months on the job and finally he realizes there needs a rep in one of the country's biggest possible terror targets - nice thinking! Chertoff will also place a representative in LA, but Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco - they just don't make the cut, probably because the DHS wants to control the media. Anyway, the Police Commissioner's statement makes us laugh:

"Certainly we welcome anybody here. We reserve the right to make a decision on deploying our resources to protect New York City. So I don't know about any sort of joint announcement. But we certainly welcome communication with Homeland Security - we need a strong relationship."

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The MTA will be paying for the additional police presence in the subways, according to Mayor Bloomberg. Police overtime to put one police officer on every train is costing the city $1.9 million a week, and Bloomberg said, "Let me give some credit to the MTA. They're willing to do this. They have some money. The governor has pushed them," even though he hasn't been happy about the MTA's footdragging on spending security funds. During his weekly radio talk, Mayor Bloomberg also said he "couldn't disagree more" with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's decision to focus on securing airline travel. Many of our commenters have questioned our anger at Chertoff's remarks, and there were quite a few valid points, but Gothamist thinks that this quote from the NY Times' Sewell Chan's Week in Review piece (which is a helpful overview of mass transit security) sums it up:

The United States mass transit system also lacks the aviation system's built-in security: limited accessibility, a ticketing system that requires identification and a single governing agency, the Federal Aviation Administration. By contrast, the Federal Transit Administration has little say over security policies. That's left to the country's 6,000 mass transit agencies.

He's only been the Department of Homeland Security Secretary for a couple months, but Michael Chertoff is a real dumbass. Chertoff, you're not going to win any fans by saying, "The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first," no matter how true it may be. Because when there are millions of people who use mass transit on a daily basis just to get from here to there. Commuters in the area are angry, as well as quick to conjure up worst case scenarios. One man tells Newsday, "To me, Penn Station -- it's just a matter of time. I think more than 30 people would die from a bomb." And the Straphangers' Gene Russianoff says, "He obviously doesn't ride the train. It's staggering what damage an explosion might do at Grand Central or Penn Station... the real risks are in transit. It just couldn't be clearer than day." The American Public Transportation Association also condemned Chertoff's remarks, stating, "'To say that a terrorist attack on a subway is less important than an attack using a commercial airline is another example of how the federal government treats the millions of public transportation riders as second-class citizens when it comes to security." more ›