Today's news from London made me think of something. Some time after 9/11, I wrote an essay (not here, R8 didn't exist) about the possible need to limit auto and delivery access to Manhattan Island, and perhaps other islands, to those with some kind of security clearance. In addition to perhaps tolling the free bridges.
I hope, with all the resources it has been given, the federal government will prevent another 9/11 or, worse, a successful attack with WMD. I accept that no one can stop a suicide bomber pedestrian blowing themself up on a street or in a subway car, though the number of people killed by such is likely to be in the overall scheme of things low. That is a risk all of us must take. In between are the sort of car and truck bombs of the sort ravaging Iraq and nearly hitting London today. We leave ourself open to them because the one civil right Americans have been unwilling to sacrifice in the wake of 9/11 is the right to drive, as the congestion pricing issue (and others) shows. But once one goes off in Times Square, kills a couple of hundred people and maims far more, we will have both congestion pricing and security clearance. Too bad political expediency requires we wait until then.