In Response to M.T.A.’s ‘Say Something’ Ads, a Glimpse of Modern Fears

January 7, 2008

Author: WILLIAM NEUMAN

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/nyregion/07see.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=muslims&oref=slogin

After 9/11, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority coined the slogan, “If you see something, say something,” and put it on posters encouraging subway and bus riders to call a police counterterrorism hot line if they encountered anything suspicious. Then, last July, the authority trumpeted results on new posters and in television ads: “Last year, 1,944 New Yorkers saw something and said something.”

But the new posters, also placed in the commuter railroad trains, left out two things: What, exactly, did those 1,944 New Yorkers see, and what did they say? Presumably, no active terror plots were interrupted, or that would have been announced by the authorities.