Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: amdcad!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm@apple.com
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: How Vunerable Are Cities To Terrorism ???
Message-ID: <9868@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 3 Oct 89 13:06:41 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
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From: amdcad!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm@apple.com
A few years ago, a major traffic jam was caused at rush hour on the route
connecting San Francisco with Oakland and the East Bay (it was on the
Bay Bridge, or one of the connecting arteries).

The cause was a bag on the road of a chemical which was treated as though 
it was extremely hazardous material.  Traffic was completely paralysed for
hours.  I believe the chemical turned out to be something totally harmless,
like gypsum.

This got me to thinking how easy it would be to "crash" a city, given a
small number of people and coordinated action.  If both the Bay Bridge
and the Golden Gate had been blocked, there probably would have been
gridlock in SF.

Of course, there are other cities even more vunerable.  Consider Manhattan,
which is an island (or as they say in New York, "a niland" :-).  I believe
it has only seven bridges connecting it with the USA.  It also receives
all of its electricity through underground/underwater high voltage cables.

In the mid-70's, New York was hit by a blackout which resulted in complete
chaos and looting in some low-SES areas.  More recently, the collapse of
law in order in St. Croix illustrates this possibility.

Are cities really as vunerable as they seem to me?  Is their any defense
against a small group with a clever plan?

I suspect there is no defense against a NEW plan, one which is neither
obvious nor has ever been tried before.  I suspect that any plan, once
tried, will stimulate the development of defenses against THAT plan.