Subway riders get to fix their underground paranoias back onto smelly train cars, whether or not the F train will actually arrive, and sudden train re-routings as the heightened subway security has been lowered (heightening + lowering = back to normal, which is elevated) for New York City. It's unclear whether or not there was ever a threat: Some federal officials say there wasn't, some say the alleged conspirators confessed to making it up, some suspect the terror alert was a political move, versus a public safety one. Well, at least now the NYCLU lawsuit is back on, most likely. What's interesting is how the city will balance extra police security (which many New Yorkers seem to like, regardless of whether or not they want bag checks and what not, because have you seen people hogging subway seats when the police shimmy down the train car?) and other counter-terrorism needs with the budget in upcoming years - we're talking about a lot of police overtime.
Even though Police Commissioner Kelly said he still thinks the city responded properly ( "This threat was very, very specific. It had specific time, specific object and modality. So, you know, we had to do what we did."), Gothamist wonders if he will personally be going to Iraq to ball out his investigators - he seems really scary.
