Leaving the back door open

Security | Authorities are watching carefully high-profile events this summer. Meanwhile terror suspects seem to be slipping in the same way other illegal immigrants do | Lynn Vincent

As conventioneers, protest armies, a movie-star governor, and the U.S. president move into New York City for the Republican National Convention, native New Yorkers are moving out.

Where will they go? The common sentiment seems to be: as far as possible from Madison Square Garden, where some New Yorkers fear the GOP's big bash may import an explosion of violence.

Even without the convention, NYC was already on high alert. On Aug. 1, homeland security chief Tom Ridge announced that U.S. forces had unearthed a detailed al-Qaeda plan to strike the city's financial district. Then, on Aug. 6, authorities in Albany, N.Y., arrested Yassin Aref, a 34-year-old imam to whom the U.S. State Department had granted political asylum, on suspicion of attempting to obtain shoulder-fired missiles as part of a terrorist plot. Now the city is sailing into a stew of high-profile events, including the convention, the U.S. Open tennis tournament, a pair of home games for the Yankees and Mets, and a huge West Indies ethnic celebration, all scheduled to unfold during the first week of September.