>>Most people are not rigging bike frames to explode on transportation lines.<<

I've thought of it so it's a good bet many others have as well.

All our freedoms are but an illusion.
 

I think if you:
1. Strip away the mythology built up about the founding fathers, the constitution, the US revolutionary war, civil war, etc.
and
2. Separate the ideological/philosophical writing from some of the more enlightened figures in American history from the actual practice of government.
then
you find that the US government really was never more than an opportunity to strip away an existing aristocracy and to replace it with a new one.  Sometimes that aristocracy has been more enlightened and benevolent, sometimes less so.  Post WW2, it seems to be that there's been a big rush to minimize those two qualities and each administration seems intent on outdoing the prior.

I think it's utterly bizarre that the ruling class is basically manufacturing a threat of violence to react against now.  It seems that the vast majority of stuff being "caught" that I read about are just government entrapment operations.  The "threat" but lack of any successful actions leads me to believe that it's just about all due to government agents/provocateurs finding the sort of people they can goad into action and immediately bust rather than any actual threat of terrorism, domestic or otherwise.

That's exactly what happened with the first Tower bombing and what happened with McVeigh in OKC.

Except in those instances the targets were actively aided in their actions by the FBI because the outcome was needed to sway public opinion.

As of right now, I am without transportation into the metropolitan area of Chicago.

I feel that this is incorrect thinking. Personally, I would love to protest those NATO fucks but I could easily board one of their freedom-of-speech-resisting trains and not break any of their five summit time-frame rules. They are not stopping anybody, unless one lets them.

From their page on "Bikes on Trains" (http://metrarail.com/metra/en/home/utility_landing/riding_metra/bikes_on_trains.html) I see that it is not an uncommon practice to ban bikes on the trains during various events. I don't think this is for safety, I believe this is due to the fact that during big city events there are a lot of people using public transit and bikes take up space. In addition, I notice on all non-event days bikes are prohibited before 9:30am and between the hours of 3:00pm - 7:00pm. Common sense dictates that is because these times are rush hour, where the trains are more crowded. I think you may be looking into the bicycle ban a little too scrutinizingly.

It's also not out of the realm of possibility that the company is being strong-armed by the Chicago police department or some other law enforcement agency to apply these rules, and it may not be the company itself. I say this because less people riding means less money for Metra.