Text Against Terror Campaign Fighting an Imagined Threat

On a train, its destination unknown, two women notice a man at the front of their car wearing a backpack and a ball cap. His hands are in his pocket. He’s clearly nervous and looking from one side to the other.

He could be a first time rider looking out for a rapidly arriving stop, or, less likely, considering the fact that NJ Transit and its trains have never been the target of a terrorist attack, let alone a single publically announced threat, a mad bomber intent on blowing up the train and killing everyone inside.

It’s an answer the listener will never know, or perhaps as it can be more accurately stated, shouldn’t care to know. As the commercial, which has played in heavy rotation on radio stations throughout the state, indicates earnestly, none of it really matters.

See something suspicious; report it.

The spot ends with an ominous militaristic refrain that’s all too familiar in a world still struggling to find its right place between conflicting desires for freedom and security following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks: we’re all on the front lines.

In June, NJ Transit unveiled a new security and customer-based surveillance measure called “Text Against Terror.” A release from the company at the time of the program’s announcement proclaims that the new initiative represents the agency’s commitment to maintaining a heightened sense of vigilance across the transit system.

Though there have never been any terrorism-related incidents on any NJ Transit lines – assaults and robberies on occasion, sure, though there’s no “Respond to Robbery” or “Act Against Assault” yet – prevention remains key.

The campaign is funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and includes ads on television and radio, posters, panel cards, and social media efforts to get the word out. Through the relative anonymity of texting, a concerned passenger can alert NJ Transit authorities in silence, not only about suspicious activities or packages, but anything that poses the question: could this involve terrorism?

Though the intention of the Text Against Terror is to make it easier for passengers to report suspicious activities, some wonder if the program isn’t just another instance of Security Theater, and ill-conceived and unenforceable effort that exacerbates fearful perceptions instead of reality.

The Legitimacy of Text Against Terror

How successful the program is at identifying terrorists and preventing terror attacks remains to be seen. It may never uncover a single thing. A company spokesperson said in the days immediately following its launch several passengers did use the feature, with some reporting not-so suspicious activity. That’s to be expected, NJ Transit says.

The objective is real but the collateral – phony texts, texts from hypersensitive riders, revenge texts from angry customers – is something that NJ Transit is willing to accept along with it.

The only real guideline is a simple one: acceptable texts include anything and everything that causes you concern.

“An unattended bag on a platform, a vehicle that’s been parked in a section and looks like it shouldn’t be there, something that looks off, we want people to tell us what they see so we can check it out and make sure we’re safe and secure. This awareness campaign does not give people a guideline (on what to report),” Transit Spokeswoman Courtney Carol said during a telephone interview. “If a person has to ask if something looks suspicious – if there any question at all in their mind – then it’s probably something worth reporting.”

Harvey Molotch has seen this kind of thing before. The New York University professor and authority on society’s reaction to terrorism said Text Against Terror, and the multitude of similar programs all presented with their own catchphrases and too-cool alliteration, is similar to New York City’s own See Something, Say Something security effort, a measure that began in the city’s subway system and has since spread throughout the world.

In all, he estimates, New York City has probably spent close to a billion dollars on the security measure. What he’s found through researching See Something, Say Something is that all the programs, all the advertisements, all the campaigns designed to spread public awareness, all the money spent, have accomplished nothing.

Aside from the obvious problems of false alarms and potential racial profiling, there’s also the cold truth that programs like Text Against Terror with their ambiguous reporting guidelines do nothing less than encourage citizens to spy on other citizens.

But, when it comes to public opinion, similar to the effectiveness of reporting suspicious activity to a police department 100 miles away from the train you’re currently speeding along in, none of that really matters.

“I think the compulsion is that you have to do something,” he said. “You have to show you care and that you’re doing all you can to safeguard the public against terror. It’s a can’t miss political move. You can’t attack an agency for taking precautions, so all this stuff, it just piles on.

“They defend their programs because they’re defending the people.”

Defending Ourselves Against One Threat

Defending the people from what, exactly, is another question.

When 19 Islamic terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners that fateful Sept. 11, 2001 Tuesday morning, they managed to not only kill nearly 3,000 innocent people and disrupt a world economy, but to forever change how Americans perceive their own safety. And, with the advent of the Patriot Act, the ever-expanding Department of Homeland Security Budget, and on-going Wars on Terror around the globe, it’s clear that the United States has yet to recover nearly 10 years later.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks there have been no acts of terrorism carried out against the U.S. Not one. Threats? Yes, several. Counter-terrorism efforts have prevented many of them, but that’s not all. Vigilant citizens who were quick to act when the moment came have even thwarted some threats, relative isolated incidents, over the past decade.

Mass shootings, the kind of violence that draws comparisons to acts of terrorism but are not defined as such, have happened with far more frequency than terrorist attacks. In 2003, 10 were killed in the Beltway sniper attacks. In 2007, a deranged Virginia Tech Student killed 32. In 2009 an Army psychiatrist killed 13 at Fort Hood in Texas. Most recently, a gunman killed six and severely wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson.

And while terrorism remains a preoccupation for many, including the country’s elected officials who continue to amend the Patriot Act and add billions in funding to Homeland Security, there’s also reality to contend with. Terrorism from foreign enemies is only one thing to worry about. Consider, if you will, murder. Over the past decade, there have been more than 16,000 murders each year in the U.S. on average, according to the Department of Justice.

The seemingly randomness of most attacks – murder, mass murder, or otherwise – is evidence that no protection and no security is thorough enough to prevent all tragedy. It’s the fear of not doing enough, Molotch argues, that has led to the development and pervasiveness of anti-terrorism programs throughout the country, even in places where there’s never even been a threat.

If New York City can be the target of a terrorist attack, Molotch said, who is to say Des Moines, Iowa can’t? New Jersey isn’t exactly flyover country, but it’s certainly been able to avoid having its name tied to serious threats.

“All over the country they fight for these Homeland Security monies and programs,” he said. “They start emulating each other and try to set up their own campaigns and programs and funding streams. The people involved with this, they go to meetings, they go to conferences, and they build these parallel structures all around the country.”

Protection from Terrorism at a Good Price

Molotch said NJ Transit’s Text Against Terror sounds like one of those parallel structures created to grab available homeland security cash. It mimics New York City’s own program in method and delivery and, now, he’s waiting to see if the sub-par results prove to be the same, too.

Though it’s been ineffective in New York, the addition of texting is designed to improve security results for NJ Transit, Carol said. Text Against Terror actually supports a program that was introduced in 2003 on the heels of 9-11. In its previous iteration, suspicious passengers were asked to call police on their cell phones to report any incongruent activity as part of the program. Realizing that a call to the authorities concerning the suspicious activities of another nearby person might put a passenger in harm, NJ Transit pushed for the new text messaging system.

NJ Transit averages between 30 and 40 calls each year, Carol said, and they expect the texting campaign to yield more results.

“There’s a comfort level in text messaging,” she said. “You can report a tip in a far more inconspicuous way than making a call. You can immediately report it via text instead of moving away and making a call.”

Security Theater

On a mostly empty platform at the Red Bank train station, Tom Pontone struggled to feed the automatic ticket machine wrinkled bills. He said he’s mostly indifferent to the anti-terrorism campaigns and all of the ads that pop up on radio and television and in print. More security measures are just more security measures, he said.

Though the borough resident is 23 now, the past 10 years since 9-11 may as well count for his entire life. Security Theater is pervasive, it’s something he’s accustomed to now. For Pontone, the ads and rhetoric and new projects and billons in funding are little more than a sign of the times. It’s a reminder that this is the world we all live in, one where the threat of terrorism is always present, whether real or not.

If this particular measure is worth it, if texting can really stop a planned, coordinated, and sophisticated attack, Pontone isn’t confident.

“I’m sure that if someone tried hard enough, they’d be able to do whatever crazy thing they wanted to do,” he said.

Therein lies the inherent problem with Text Against Terror, Molotch said. In New York City, See Something, Say Something regularly results in numerous false alarms and subsequent train delays. It’s also been abused by people who want to get back at the person right next to them who just pissed them off.

In Red Bank on her way back to New York City, Gela Kline said she’s seen the kind of security results provided by See Something, Say Something. Soon after the initiative was rolled out she was delayed from getting on a train while police, in full bomb gear, discovered in the most arduous way the contents of a grocery bag.

They were, of course, groceries.

“It’s not effective,” she said. “It just causes more delays while real issues go unattended.”

The most significant threat to the city’s subway system, Molotch said, came when a transit officer planted a pipe bomb in order to look like a hero when he later found it and rushed subway passengers to safety before it exploded. At the time of the incident he was due to retire from the force because of a psychiatric condition.

“There is no gain from it,” he said. “The only possible gain is that people who have lost luggage that is treated as suspicious and reported to the bomb squad might get it back.

“There are ways in which people have been picked up for drugs, but none of them had a single thing to do with terror.”

The problem is likely worse in New York City, with its huge and dense population, but New Jersey has a different sort of problem: an entire state’s worth of trains, stations, parking lots, busses and depots. It’s the third-largest transit system in the country, according to NJ Transit.

NJ Transit insists that all the texts it receives will be investigated. It’s difficult to imagine how the process will be expedited. A text sent from anywhere first goes to transit police headquarters in Newark. That’s not exactly next door if you’re on a train traveling anywhere else.

Carol said the partnerships make the project work.

“Our police department maintains good communication with New Jersey Homeland Security, the FBI, and agencies at all levels: local, county, state and federal,” she said. “Our police are in constant communication with other agencies. We’re never working alone, we maintain relationships.”

Funding Behind the Initiative

Many of those relationships, however, are propped up by funding from Homeland Security. The department, formed following the events of 9-11, is charged with protecting the U.S. from, and responding to, terrorism.

Its inaugural budget in 2003 was $42.4 billion. Its 2011 budget, despite a decade devoid of terrorist attacks, is $56.3 billion, according to the homeland security 2011 budget presentation. Though most of the funding is accounted for before congress signs the check, several billion dollars each year are set aside for grant funding. Grants for increased border patrols, grants for developing new and more secure drivers licenses, grants for responding to terrorist attacks – available to all 50 states and U.S. territories - and, obviously, grants for defending non-profits from terrorist attack. There’s something for everyone. Pork, draped in an American flag.

Text Against Terror, naturally, is paid for by a $1.15 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security.

“I don’t know how far the money is going,” Carol said. “But the program will continue.”

Fear of a Lifetime

With so much in available funding and for so many programs, there’s little incentive to cut back on spending, let along safety measures. With the public believing an exaggerated truth about terrorism, Molotch said, there’s little pressure from the public to slow things down either.

When the anti-terrorism fervor will die down, Molotch isn’t too sure. What he does believe is that it will fade along with time. Fear, however, can easily last a lifetime.

“Decades are one solution and when we all die, not from a terrorist attack, but if we get hit by a car tomorrow or die in a hospital bed of pneumonia when we’re 91,” he said. “These things have a half-life. My guess is that, like everything else these days, if there are no more attacks, and there’s no more to gain politically by fussing over it, it will gradually lose its energy and ebb away.”