I'd disagree. My impression is that the authorities in Seattle, in order to minimize short-term disruption, are choosing to increase the potential difficulty on

I'd disagree. My impression is that the authorities in Seattle, in order to minimize short-term disruption, are choosing to increase the potential difficulty on long timescales. To paraphrase: "We don't want to take aggressive action until we're certain that it is actually bad.". In many situations, that is a fine approach, but when the adversary scales exponentially, it is a dangerous road to travel.