Space Needle a terrorist target? ‘Your listeners are not going to want to hear this’

Is the Space Needle a likely terrorist target? Fred Burton, a former counter-terrorism agent and current VP of Intelligence for global intelligence firm Stratfor, tells the Jason Rantz Show that “…your listeners are not going to want to hear this.”

After the deadly ISIS attacks in Brussels this week, concern continues to grow over protecting “soft targets” abroad and here at home. One of those unprotected targets? The Seattle Space Needle.

Related: Should you consider arming yourself against a terrorist attack in Seattle?

When asked how law enforcement and intelligence agents can realistically protect these soft targets, Burton says “you can’t.”

“Of course, we’ve seen Seattle threatened in the past from Al Qaeda, for example,” Burton told Rantz. “There simply are too many soft targets. Your listeners are not going to want to hear this but that’s reality. The FBI is not going to be able to stop all the attacks here in the United States and when you look here domestically, it’s extraordinary difficult to protect soft targets in the society we live in.”

While we’ve been doing much better in protecting aviation, of particular concern are buses and subways.

“What you have to hope for is that the FBI has that tip off, that human intelligence, that intercept that says a group is planning to do X, Y or Z,” Burton warned.

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