The Cowboys and their lawyers have presented the argument that, according to team spokesman Brett Daniels, "it's premature to release the documents because of proprietary business practice information as well as issues with security." My view is that the Cowboys sacrificed their proprietary business claims as soon as they stuffed their snouts in the public trough. In fact, this claim so reeks of arrogance that it almost overwhelms all of the other arguments. It is increasingly common for professional sports teams to suckle at the public teat and then turn around and pretend that they owe the public nothing because they are fundamentally engaged in private enterprise. In the future one hopes that sports teams are subject to more, not less, public scrutiny. Even those teams that build new stadia with their own funds almost always receive tax breaks worth millions. Billionaire owners want to have the public pay for their opulent facilities in which they will charge exorbitant prices for tickets and concessions. They are learning, just like the poor guy who stands in line at halftime to spend $60 for a wretched gelatinous pile of food and drinks, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Or half-billion dollar stadium.
But the other claims, those tied to security, give pause. I've said for years, even before 9/11, that stadiums on game day or concert night were among the most vulnerable targets for terrorist attacks. Tens of thousands of people in a celebratory mood unwary and focused on something else. Screaming crowds. Public address announcers. Amps at rock shows. Lots of drunk people. Showy but largely perfunctory security. Providing diagrams and blue prints to terrorists, whether Islamist or of the home grown variety (the President seems to have forgotten about the Eric Rudolph, Ku Klux Klan, Tim McVeigh, Unabomber, Charles Whitman types; His defenders share in his selective amnesia; some of us do not) seems shortsighted. Clearly the public does not have the right to know everything.
Then again, someone with malice aforethought can take plenty of time to plan an attack upon an open stadium. Once a stadium opens, it is usually fairly clearly laid out -- section one to section 26 or so all the way around a lower bowl, above that 101 to 126, and so forth. Football and multipurpose stadia, as well as basketball/hockey arenas are the most predictable, baseball facilities only somewhat less so. Providing diagrams that once a stadium opens will be available anyway hardly seems like a serious breach of either public safety or security. The danger will not come from simply knowing a stadium's layout, however essential that might be to a planned attack.
Prevention of a terrorist attack (or murderous rampage, which almost assuredly poses a greater and more likely danger in the long run) will come in the form of vigilance, intelligence and competence. A little sanity would also go a long way in bringing a level of reasonableness to our discussions as well. When you enter a stadium on a hot day and are drinking a bottle of water, recent news stories notwithstanding, the odds that the water will become a deadly weapon are almost nil. It is hard not to be cynical about a policy that happens to profit the concession stands significantly without demonstrably (or even plausibly) increasing safety. It also inspires less, not more, confidence among those of us who try to pay attention to these matters that the biggest concern at security gates always reflects the latest news cycle so that the only concern officials at the UT game this past weekend seemed to have was whether or not those entering the stadium had liquids. Meanwhile, if I had hidden a gun in my waistband there would have been no way of them noticing because they clearly did not bother to try to notice. In terms of odds, I would surmise that an attack at a big game will more likely come from someone wielding a gun that someone wielding a half-empty bottle of Crystal Geyser or Moland Spring.
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