Is America Taking Security Seriously?

U.S. companies have widely divergent approaches to security depending on their industry and location, says a new report in BusinessWeek magazine. According to the article by Paul Magnusson, "screaming headlines about al Qaeda's plans to attack financial targets hardly ruffled the doldrums of deep summer." While New York and Washington were on guard, Magnusson lists a number of companies in other parts of the country who didn't take any extra security precautions. It was business as usual, he says, at the Sears Tower in Chicago, Proctor & Gamble in Cincinnati, Disneyland and Warner Brothers in California and Boeing in Seattle, he says. The one exception, he says, was San Francisco, where there was visible added police activity.

Major cities are taking a cost-benefit approach to terror, he says, "and deciding that the safeguards they've added since September 11 will meet the risks they're likely to face." For those companies outside major urban areas, cost is a big issue, he says, but points out that many solutions are not necessarily costly.

In those cities that are prime terrorist targets, however, companies are taking a strict approach to security. Magnusson points out that Wall Street has become "a bunker" these days and mentions that the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has an upgraded backup facility in an undisclosed location.

To read Magnusson's full article, click here: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/aug2004/nf2004085_9429_db016.htm.