Six years after the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, the city of Boston and Boston University are still toeing the line between protecting the public and protecting civil liberties.
Only hours after hi-jacked planes hit both towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon and crashed in a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001, the BU Police Department was called into action, said spokesman Sgt. Jack St. Hilaire.
“Right after 9/11, the BUPD chief, at the time, was assigned to take over security at Logan Airport,” St. Hilaire said. “It was a terrible security situation — it’s where the planes were hijacked.”
In the aftermath of the attacks, BUPD dealt with anthrax threats and an overload of security questions from inquisitive students who flooded the station’s switchboard, St. Hilaire said.
After the Virginia Tech massacre in April brought campus security concerns to the forefront, St. Hilaire said BU is more prepared than ever in the event of an emergency, and that in the time of need, the department has the ability to enlist special measures it could not otherwise.
“[Chief Thomas Robbins] told me that tragedy allowed him to make changes rapidly and without resistance,” St. Hilaire said. “With tragedy, agencies are able to get things done — people protest less and there are less politics to get through.”
Hilaire said his force has more authority to take necessary action in the event of an emergency.
“Before Virginia Tech, we were always trained tactically to respond to violent situations — with the old way we would secure the scene and make sure there were no injuries,” he said. “Now we do the same, but now if there is active shooting, we can get in there and try to suppress the threat immediately.”
In addition to Send Word Now, which sends text messages to the BU community in the event of a campus emergency, several improvements in communications will allow the BUPD to better serve students, St. Hilaire said.
“If there were ever a crisis, I could just jump into my car and I’d be in direct contact with the Mass. State Police and the Boston force,” he said.
As the country adjusts to the now-commonplace security hassles in airports, the face of security in Boston has changed significantly in just the last year.
Last September, Logan Airport became the first airport in the country to check every single bag — stowed-away or carried-on — that entered. Later in October, former Gov. Mitt Romney instituted a set of random bag checks in MBTA stops across Boston, and in April, the MBTA announced plans to issue security cameras in 155 buses across the city.
Christ Oft, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said with each tragedy comes a fear that the government will assume a greater authority than it should.
“When anyone mentions September 11, it automatically opens the door to the elimination and reduction of important rights and liberties,” he said.
Oft expressed specific concern over the use of surveillance cameras in the city as an automatic means to enforce the law.
“It keeps being seen as the magic solution,” he said. “I understand that in large venues — things like stadiums and public transportation — it can help enforce the law, but I’m concerned when it’s hitting the public streets and everywhere in between.
“It’s pretty simple,” he added. “When it looks like Big Brother, it’s a bad idea.”
