The Freedom Tower

A drifter living in New York city says he found a blueprint set for the new World Trade Center’s ‘Freedom Tower’. According to press reports, Mike Fleming says he found the plans discarded in a public trash can earlier this month, according to a story in the New York Post.
The plans were supposedly kept under lock and key and were the confidential building plans for the main tower of the new World Trade Center. They were found in a trash can in New York’s SoHo district. Fleming discovered two different sets of the 150-page blueprints in the trash can while he was searching for cardboard, the newspaper reported on Friday.  “
Experts said they contained detailed floor-by-floor schematics of the new Freedom Tower — a 1,776-foot skyscraper that will be the centerpiece of the new World Trade Center.

On the front of each set of blueprints are the words, “Secure document - confidential” — and a warning to destroy the architectural plans if they are discarded.

The plans’ discovery raised serious alarm among the security community, with many experts concerned that particularly vital information was carelessly and literally thrown out.

“Any time a sensitive document is unintentionally left behind, it’s a treasure trove for a potential adversary,” security expert Robert Strang told the Post.  “It enables them to look for vulnerabilities in design that they can target — an age-old military tactic.”

Perhaps even more alarming is the fact that one of the trashed blueprint sets was missing its first 14-pages.

Though the plans are several versions old — they were dated Oct. 5, 2007 — authorities worry that they still carry enough information for a terrorist to exploit.  For instance, the blueprints included the plans for each floor, the thickness of the concrete-core wall and the location of air ducts and elevators.
The 1,776-foot Freedom Tower is part of the new World Trade Center complex in downtown New York City. It is expected to open in 2012. (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill)
The 1,776-foot Freedom Tower is part of the new World Trade Center complex in downtown New York City. It is expected to open in 2012. (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill)

Even the transient who found the plans in the trash was concerned about his discovery.

“They were right on top, and the garbage truck came along ten minutes later,” Mike Fleming told the Post.  “I was outraged because this is priceless and it could get into the wrong hands.”

Authorities are trying to determine how the blueprints ended up in the trash, but are nearly certain they were put there by an insider.  Those particular plans were only distributed to Port Authority officials, architects and contractors — and were never intended to be made public.

“We don’t tolerate carelessness and stupidity,” Port Authority spokesperson Candace McAdams said.

Construction on the Freedom Tower began about two years ago and is expected to open in 2012.  The new complex will feature the Freedom Tower and several smaller buildings, in addition to a permanent memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The new World Trade Center is supposed to include far more built-in security than the old complex, which was bombed in 1993 and then toppled by terrorists eight years later.  But even some relatives of 9/11 victims say this security lapse doesn’t come as a surprise.

“This whole thing is kind of frightening, but at the same time totally expected,” Bill Doyle told the Post, whose son died in the old World Trade Center.

“I would certainly be pretty leary going to work in [the Freedom Tower] knowing that security on the plans was so lax that even a vagabond could find them,” he added.