Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force--The NYPD

This is a wonderful read... a fascinating analysis of the NYPD's astounding effort to apply real intelligence to the threat of terrorism. It features terrific interviews and insights into New York's most daring and impressive effort to redefine how threats are assessed, managed, and countered in a time where national leadership has failed to protect us. Chris Dickey is an amazing investigative journalist and "Securing the City" is mandatory reading if you want to understand how counter-terrorism can be handled effectively.

"Securing The City" describes, with journalistic immediacy, how the NYPD's Counterterrorism Division is organized and operates to keep the city safe after 9/11. The author's main premises, amply supported throughout the book, are: (1) to prevent terror attacks, there is no substitute for good, seat-of-the-pants, ground-level policing and information-gathering; (2) it is vital to save lives by preventing such attacks in the first place, even if this just amounts to scaring the bad guys off rather than arresting them; and (3) the real threat is an ever-mutating mixture of global, local, and even homegrown terrorist cells and individuals. Logically enough, Dickey (and the NYPD) concludes that local police forces must adopt a global information-gathering reach to do their jobs of keeping us safe here at home. That is why the NYPD sends officers overseas to exchange intelligence with their counterparts in other countries, and why every agency involved in the effort - local police, FBI, CIA, etc. - absolutely _must_ work together seamlessly to keep our country safe. And the author gives many examples of where they don't, as well as where they do. These ideas are not obvious, and not easy - they are difficult to implement, and have been resisted every step of the way. Christopher Dickey has done a great service in bringing them forward so compellingly for public debate. The book's title is a little misleading, since it is really global in scope; the NYPD is just the example he uses, both positive and negative, to make many of his points. I think the book is important; that following its recommendations can make America safer; and that policy makers and concerned citizens will benefit by reading, debating, and learning from it.

I hope and pray Obama reads this, great book that our leaders need to read.

I read this book based on The Economist's review (see it below). There is plenty of food for thought here about how best to counteract terror. One of the most positive and comforting parts of this story: New York and America continue to benefit from immigration. Contrary to what many think, the safest cities are those with immigrants. The American dream is alive in NYC and keeping it alive is the best anti-terror policy of all. The NYPD has taken some interesting and innovative approaches to combating terror--if you're interested in the topic you'll find the book thought provoking. NYPD's fighting force Feb 12th 2009 From The Economist print edition The NYPD offers an alternative to the highly militarised war on terror It is not often that a city has its very own counter-terrorist force. But since the attacks of September 11th 2001, New York has felt uniquely vulnerable--and uniquely entitled to special protection. In a vivid and thought-provoking book about the years since the twin towers collapsed, Christopher Dickey analyses how the New York Police Department (NYPD) counter-terrorism division has made itself one of the best in the business. This did not happen easily or without resistance. The NYPD's commissioner, Ray Kelly, a former marine, and his intelligence chief, David Cohen, who had worked for the CIA, faced considerable opposition in building their team. The principal aim was to use human intelligence to prevent future attacks. To achieve that they had to gather accurate and detailed information about al-Qaeda and other groups, and learn from the attacks they launched overseas. Never mind that this irritated the FBI and the CIA--the "three-letter guys", as Mr Dickey calls them--who tended to regard the NYPD as some kind of Johnny-come-lately muscling in on their turf. Mr Dickey ends up admiring Mr Kelly and Mr Cohen for creating a counter-terror organisation which many now regard as among the most energetic. They fought for and won the right to station people overseas--in London, Tel Aviv and as far off as Singapore--to provide first-hand information-gathering from useful places. And their most important achievement, in Mr Dickey's estimation, is to have turned New York's multicultural diversity to their advantage, building up a team of more than 600 linguists fluent in some 50 languages and dialects. In 2007 NYPD analysts published a 90-page booklet, "Radicalization in the West", seeking to pass on what they had learnt about the home-grown threat in Europe and America. A scheme to attack a busy New York subway station was foiled just two days before the Republican convention in 2004 when, thanks to an informant, Mr Kelly was able to arrest the Muslim plotters. The group was clearly incompetent but, as Mr Dickey points out, motley conspirators could be dangerous, "even when some were morons". "Securing the City" is a gritty, down-to-earth work; a very American book about a very American city. Mr Dickey accompanies cops on the be

I ordered this book after seeing a review in one of my favorite magazines The Economist and read it from cover to cover. Since I live in Manhattan and have lost a family member on 9/11, the issue of 'Securing the City' gets my undivided attention. Dickey has done a very workmanlike job describing the measures put into effect by the NYPD after the '3-letter agencies' such as the CIA and FBI failed to protect the city and the country prior to 9/11. He describes turf wars with the 3-letter guys that erupted when NYPD began to develop its own intelligence service and stationing agents abroad. To my view, this was like the emergence of competition after the breakup of ATT phone monopoly decades ago. The arrival of smaller aggressive competitors has improved service for everybody. Dickey also describes many of the vile aspects of NYPD work, such as inserting an agent-provocateur to create a 'cell' of two young moslems - one a schizophrenic, another mildly retarded - then dragging them into courts and using the psychotic to testify against the retarded to send him to prison for 30 years. He also goes way too easy on NYPD for their behavior during the recent Republican National convention. Those were ugly days, like living in an occupied city. I was walking with my daughter one day when a kevlar-helmeted, M-16 toting guardian of order was directing traffic and kicked with his jackboot the door of a car whose driver was not paying attention. Several reviewers have given Dickey bad ratings because of what he wrote about. I say, he is a serious professional journalist who writes in a clear and engaging way. Praise or criticize the book on its merits! Thank you Mr Dickey, as head to my roof deck to look at the unmarked police helicopters incessantly hovering overhead.