If the TSA were running New York, James Fallows says, this is how it would react to this weekend’s Times Square bomb threat:
- All vans or SUVs headed into Midtown Manhattan would have to stop and have their contents inspected. If any vehicle seemed for any reason to have escaped inspection, Midtown in its entirety would be evacuated;
- A whole new uniformed force — the Times Square Security Administration, or TsSA — would be formed for this purpose;
- The restrictions would never be lifted and the TsSA would have permanent life, because the political incentives here work only one way.