structural:reformatting
Terrorism prevention

On July 22, 2005, in response to bombings in London, the New York City Police Department introduced a new policy of randomly searching passengers' bags as they approached turnstiles. The NYPD claimed that no form of racial profiling would be conducted when these searches actually took place. The NYPD has come under fire from some groups that claim purely random searches without any form of threat assessment would be ineffectual. Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, stated, "This NYPD bag search policy is unprecedented, unlawful and ineffective. It is essential that police be aggressive in maintaining security in public transportation. But our very real concerns about terrorism do not justify the NYPD subjecting millions of innocent people to suspicionless searches in a way that does not identify any person seeking to engage in terrorist activity and is unlikely to have any meaningful deterrent effect on terrorist activity." The searches were upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in MacWade v. Kelly.

On April 11, 2008, MTA received a Ferrara Fire Apparatus Hazardous Materials Response Truck, which went into service three days later. It will be used in the case of a chemical or bioterrorist attack.

Najibullah Zazi and others were arrested in September 2009 and pleaded guilty in 2010 to being part of an al-Qaeda plan to undertake suicide bombings on the New York City subway system.