Who's Liable? Company or Terrorists?

[SIW Editor]

A bit shocking, IMHO:

http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=329&id=6163

Jury found that ""agency was 68 percent liable for the bombing and that terrorists were 32 percent liable" -- what do you think?

Notable was that there was a security review prior to the attacks that said the garage was a potential target. But my question is should a company or Port Authority or whomever be more liable for a terrorist action than the terrorists themselves?


Geoff Kohl, editor
SecurityInfoWatch.com

[N. A. Corbier]

The ultimate application of "failure to do due diligence," I guess. This rings of most suit over security inadequacy. You have a report conducted, it shows deficiency, and then it comes out in court - and boom. Its your fault.

[Bill Warnock]

The authority was forewarned by folks like me, security consultants, that unless they did certain things there was a great likelyhood of a terrorist event. Forseeability is one of the hallmarks of this business. The reasonable prudent man theory takes hold in this instance.
N.A. Corbier and I are of one mind.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

[EERecovery]

Negligence vs malicious intent

This vedict confuses negligence and malicious intent. Both principles are different and by law are viewed in different lights. This case should be overturned based on that fact. When all the evidence is viewed the Port Authority does carry most of the blame for negligence and should be held accountable.

Chris
Security Project Manager

[N. A. Corbier]

This vedict confuses negligence and malicious intent. Both principles are different and by law are viewed in different lights. This case should be overturned based on that fact. When all the evidence is viewed the Port Authority does carry most of the blame for negligence and should be held accountable.

Chris
Security Project Manager

You have a point, in the lack of malicious intent, but what about the standard of care that the port authority had to the public using those facilities? Would willful negligence, orchestrated by a government/corporate bureaucry be called malicious?

[Bill Warnock]

The Authority was informed by two separate security surveys the garage was an accident waiting to happen. Further they also were warned to move emergency lighting circuitry from the main buss room. Simply stated, standard building lighting on one side of the building and emergency lighting to a different location. They chose to ignore these recommendations. To add insult to injury, since they are a government entity they could waive both national, state and local Electrical and Life Safety Codes. That smacks of gross negligence.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

[AASC Colorado]

Bill touched upon one key phrase here?reasonable. Key phrases that I haven?t seen brought forward yet are, foreseeable incident and probability of incident.

It may be foreseeable that space aliens will kill cows, but not probable. It is probable and foreseeable that a terrorist organization may hijack a truck full of Hazmat and drive it into a large municipal water reservoir, but absolute protection against this is not reasonable.

The WTC bombing was beyond foreseeable and probable, it was KNOWN that plans existed among terrorist groups that it was a target. The people responsible to securing the garage became liable because they chose not to implement reasonable defensive measures. I would be hard pressed to find WTC liability in the 9/11 aircraft attacks, but the garage could have been protected without excessive cost and inconvenience to the building.

[N. A. Corbier]

Bill touched upon one key phrase here?reasonable. Key phrases that I haven?t seen brought forward yet are, foreseeable incident and probability of incident.

It may be foreseeable that space aliens will kill cows, but not probable. It is probable and foreseeable that a terrorist organization may hijack a truck full of Hazmat and drive it into a large municipal water reservoir, but absolute protection against this is not reasonable.

The WTC bombing was beyond foreseeable and probable, it was KNOWN that plans existed among terrorist groups that it was a target. The people responsible to securing the garage became liable because they chose not to implement reasonable defensive measures. I would be hard pressed to find WTC liability in the 9/11 aircraft attacks, but the garage could have been protected without excessive cost and inconvenience to the building.

Now that would not be a trial I'd like to see. Liability for 9/11 would be hard pressed, at best, unless you could plan to shoot an aircraft out of downtown NY airspace without it crashing and destroying SOMETHING on the way down.

[S/O245]

I think with Terrorism Law Enforcement Agencies, Military and security cant aford to 2nd guess anymore. After watching inside 9/11 it showed that our government first learned in what 94 or 96 97 that al quida is going to hijack american airliners and attack american targets. This is whwen we needed to do something. I also seen that we had a few chances to send a unit of men in to get bin laden but the president admin turned the plan down. I seen that the Pres admin was first told about al quida from the FBI and CIA in 1992 or 93. The USS Cole Attack was a act of war, however we never launched anything. So no longer can we ignore intell info or other terrorism indicators. We cant 2nd guess anymore. When you 2nd guess a important thing like terrorism (homeland security) people may die as on 9/11 was it over 3,000 were killed in one day. If we learn anything from this we need to learn to stay up on our game and no more 2nd guessing.

Stay Safe All

[Bill Warnock]

[AASC Colorado]

No matter what information was made available to the WTC officials, there was no defensible plan for the building beyond the initial construction. Any corporate liabilities in the 9/11 attacks would be with the airlines for failure to make the cockpits more secure. The airlines took the approach that it would be too expensive to do this to domestic flights simply because there has not been a sigificant highjacking attempt in country.

[Bill Warnock]

As we all found out when attending threat briefings, FAA was at the time both cheerleader and enforcer. They encouraged air travel with minimum interference by security types.
That is why TSA was formed, but they still look to FAA for much of their guidance.
Billie Vincent, a former Chief of FAA Security was shown the door, in a not so polite fashion, when he advocated a balance of "it is easy to fly" and security standards.
He runs a successful air security consulting company here in Northern Virginia.
Balance and reliable intelligence are key to a security victory.
Enjoy the day,
Bill