US to step up security at hotels and malls

[agitator]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101226/bs_afp/usattackssecurity

US to step up security at hotels and malls
Sun Dec 26, 11:45 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States is stepping up security at "soft targets" like hotels and shopping malls, as well as trains and ports, as it counters the evolving Al-Qaeda threat, a top official said Sunday.

A year after a foiled plot to bomb a US-bound passenger plane, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN's "State of the Union" program that other places and modes of transportation must now be scrutinized.

"We look at so-called soft targets -- the hotels, shopping malls, for example -- all of which we have reached out to in the past year and have done a fair amount of training for their own employees," Napolitano said.

Since an attempted bombing on a packed Saturday night in Times Square in May, New York, for example, has installed hundreds of security cameras as part of a plan to triple the number of cameras to 3,000.

In September, the city activated some 500 new surveillance cameras at its three busiest subway stations -- Times Square, Penn Station and Grand Central.

"The overall message is everything is objectively better than it was a year ago, particularly in the aviation environment. But we're also looking at addressing other areas," Napolitano said.

As extremists struggle to circumvent tighter security at airports and search for new avenues, she said US officials were looking to step up broader measures.

"What we have to do is say, well, what other ways are they thinking to commit an act, because our job is not only to react, but to be thinking always ahead, what could be happening," Napolitano said.

"And so we have enhanced measures going on at surface transportation, not because we have a specific or credible threat there, but because we know, looking at Madrid and London, that's been another source of targets for terrorists."

Suicide bombers killed 52 people aboard a bus and three London Underground trains in 2005.

And in Europe's worst terror attack, 191 people were killed and nearly 2000 injured in Madrid in March 2004 when 10 backpacks filled with nails and explosives went off on four trains during morning rush hour.

"It means, as we make the land borders harder to cross from a land border crossing standpoint, that we need to be looking out into our coasts and to the waters," said Napolitano.

Last Christmas, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young Nigerian who claims to have been trained by Al-Qaeda operatives in the Yemen, failed to detonate explosives concealed in his underwear on a packed transatlantic airliner as it came in to land in Detroit.

The US authorities responded by installing new screening machines and initiating draconian body searches at airports.

Napolitano said international travelers in the United States also face tight intelligence screening even before they reach the boarding gate.

[MelissaWV]

To look at how futile and stupid this would be (even if the Government's intention really was to protect people and not to spy or spread their tentacles into more of the country's dealings), one only has to recall the Beltway Sniper.

No, hundreds weren't killed, but the "targets" were random people... one mowing their lawn, a kid being dropped off at school, some folks filling their tank at a gas station, and folks in parking lots. There is absolutely zero reason that "terrorists" can't do the same thing on a larger scale. At the time, people were going crazy making roadblocks and searching white vans, since there were reports of a white van being the getaway car. Of course, there was really no white van involved, and it turned out that they were caught more by chance than anything else. In the meantime, the DC Metro area was pretty on edge.

More than that, you can always strike just on this side of any security measure. You can bomb the line at the airport, or you can leave a bomb in the subway by making it look like you're doing something utterly normal (I am 99% sure that there are still those lockers where you can leave stuff and pay in tokens). You can run into the checkpoints and cause carnage (which is a favorite tactic overseas, if you'll notice).

You can't stop things by installing these idiotic checkpoints... but they provide a nice false sense of security, and a means to check people for drugs and other things under the guise of increasing safety.

[squarepusher]

im just waiting to see my friends in blue shirts at mall entrances ready to touch me

[Kregisen]

You can bomb the line at the airport

Exactly. If you put security up everywhere, they can just bomb the lines for security.

Face it....if people WANT to kill you, they can. The government can't protect everybody every second of the day, no matter how hard it tries, how much of our money it spends, and how many freedoms it takes away from us. We live in a world of people. With that comes a sense of risk, meaning you aren't 100.000% positive you'll survive every day.

Oh well.

I don't see what the issue is.

[tangent4ronpaul]

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States is stepping up security at "soft targets" like hotels and shopping malls, as well as trains and ports, as it counters the evolving Al-Qaeda threat, a top official said Sunday.

There are 126,509 Hotel an Motel companies in the US.
There are approximately 840 shopping malls in the US.
The number of trains in the US is unknown, but there is 150,000 miles of rail in the country and we use rail more than any other country. It's got to be a pretty dynamic number as the length of trains change. There are 30 light rail systems. Additionally we have 28 subway systems in the country, using 1,225 km of rail and made up of 1,025 stations. Amtrak transports 28.7 Million people a year between 500 stations in 46 states.
There are 149 ports in the country.

Clearly TSA/DHS is working hard to correct one of the most significant threats to our national security. We'll have this unemployment problem fixed in no time!

-t

[Brooklyn Red Leg]

im just waiting to see my friends in blue shirts at mall entrances ready to touch me

Just fucking great, I swear. Its already bad enough trying to find a job as a security guard now but fucking TSA is going to come in and make it worse. I swear to God its like the government is purposely trying to FUCK people out of jobs in favour of its lacky goon squad. Bad enough I have to compete with asshole Cops, Sheriffs Deputies and Highway Patrol jagoffs soaking up the jobs for 'extra money', now we can add the Feds to the mix.

[Anti Federalist]

Just fucking great, I swear. Its already bad enough trying to find a job as a security guard now but fucking TSA is going to come in and make it worse. I swear to God its like the government is purposely trying to FUCK people out of jobs in favour of its lacky goon squad. Bad enough I have to compete with asshole Cops, Sheriffs Deputies and Highway Patrol jagoffs soaking up the jobs for 'extra money', now we can add the Feds to the mix.

My brother, you're just figuring this out now?

I've been put out of work/out of business twice before by government, and I'm an RCH away from having it happen to me a third time.

[Anti Federalist]

Oh, and by the way, to all those people who said, "Well I don't care about the pornoscanners/TSA groping, I just won't/don't have to, fly".

Suck my dick. :mad::mad::mad:

[tpreitzel]

Nah, they'll just stop going to malls and hotels ... then, they'll just stop traveling altogether. ;) Unfortunately, the joke's been on them while many of us have been consistently opposing this fascist entity's (DHS/TSA) intrusion into our lives.

[Cap]

Nazi fucking Germany all over.

[HOLLYWOOD]

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States is stepping up security at "soft targets" like hotels and shopping malls, as well as trains and portsTruly, Soft targets for who, again?
Besides the Fascist Government Tyrants are preparing for Totalitarianism... there are other reasons to the preparations.

[Dark_Horse_Rider]

The insanity arises in not recognizing reality, for example, wealth must come from somewhere other than a printer, or that if you mess with many people, many people probably won't like that, and then trying to fight or stave off the inevitable results.

I am actually surprised at how forgiving many people seem to be after having been maligned in the name of America. The beast subconcioulsy realizes the reality of the situation, but in all its' arrogant misery, still desperately gropes for a life without death, an up without down, a beginning without an end.

This, IMO, is what we are seeing happen now. Trying to defend the undefendable, of scanning and probing for something that does not exist, except in the terrified mind of denial.

[Anti Federalist]

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.

[Brooklyn Red Leg]

Truly, Soft targets for who, again?

Technically only for the government. A 'soft target' is a military term and denotes something that isn't defended. Reference 'hard points' and 'defense-in-depth'. A 'soft target' is something that doesn't have people that shoot back at Predator Drones dropping Hellfire missiles.

[sailingaway]

Well, that is excellent news for strip malls, shopping streets and motels, isn't it?

I mean WHO would go through an 'enhanced pat down' or a pornoscanner just for the privilege of spending money at a store?

[AxisMundi]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101226/bs_afp/usattackssecurity

US to step up security at hotels and malls
Sun Dec 26, 11:45 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States is stepping up security at "soft targets" like hotels and shopping malls, as well as trains and ports, as it counters the evolving Al-Qaeda threat, a top official said Sunday.

A year after a foiled plot to bomb a US-bound passenger plane, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN's "State of the Union" program that other places and modes of transportation must now be scrutinized.

"We look at so-called soft targets -- the hotels, shopping malls, for example -- all of which we have reached out to in the past year and have done a fair amount of training for their own employees," Napolitano said.

Since an attempted bombing on a packed Saturday night in Times Square in May, New York, for example, has installed hundreds of security cameras as part of a plan to triple the number of cameras to 3,000.

In September, the city activated some 500 new surveillance cameras at its three busiest subway stations -- Times Square, Penn Station and Grand Central.

"The overall message is everything is objectively better than it was a year ago, particularly in the aviation environment. But we're also looking at addressing other areas," Napolitano said.

As extremists struggle to circumvent tighter security at airports and search for new avenues, she said US officials were looking to step up broader measures.

"What we have to do is say, well, what other ways are they thinking to commit an act, because our job is not only to react, but to be thinking always ahead, what could be happening," Napolitano said.

"And so we have enhanced measures going on at surface transportation, not because we have a specific or credible threat there, but because we know, looking at Madrid and London, that's been another source of targets for terrorists."

Suicide bombers killed 52 people aboard a bus and three London Underground trains in 2005.

And in Europe's worst terror attack, 191 people were killed and nearly 2000 injured in Madrid in March 2004 when 10 backpacks filled with nails and explosives went off on four trains during morning rush hour.

"It means, as we make the land borders harder to cross from a land border crossing standpoint, that we need to be looking out into our coasts and to the waters," said Napolitano.

Last Christmas, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young Nigerian who claims to have been trained by Al-Qaeda operatives in the Yemen, failed to detonate explosives concealed in his underwear on a packed transatlantic airliner as it came in to land in Detroit.

The US authorities responded by installing new screening machines and initiating draconian body searches at airports.

Napolitano said international travelers in the United States also face tight intelligence screening even before they reach the boarding gate.

And that London Underground was covered with cameras.

By the gods, when are our politicians going to get a clue?

[Anti Federalist]

And that London Underground was covered with cameras.

By the gods, when are our politicians going to get a clue?

Never, because you, and too many of our fellow citizens, are approaching this from the wrong angle.

If you keep thinking that this is nothing more than silly, inept, political bungling, nothing will ever change.

That's not what the cause of this is.

[Matt Collins]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4G-0g9PRrE

[AxisMundi]

Never, because you, and too many of our fellow citizens, are approaching this from the wrong angle.

If you keep thinking that this is nothing more than silly, inept, political bungling, nothing will ever change.

That's not what the cause of this is.

Gotta keep up the insults even on topics we agree on, huh.

[Koz]

First of all I am more afraid of someone from my own government than Al Quaida. Second, there is no war on terror, this is just a ruse to gain more control over the subjects. If Romney, Palin, or the Huckster are the next President this will still continue.

[jmdrake]

I realized this about 3 months after 9/11. If a security state is "answer" it has to go from the time you leave your door until the time you get back. There are just too many ways to carry out terror attacks. That set me on the path to discover whether 9/11 could have been prevented based on the available intelligence. I had no idea how far down the rabbit hole that would lead me. :(

[jmdrake]

Gotta keep up the insults even on topics we agree on, huh.

Where is the insult? AF just said you were approaching this "from the wrong angle". You find that insulting? Why?

[cindy25]

malls and hotels are already hurting, and being foreclosed on; add more costs, reduce business more and commercial real estate could collapse. no one will bother lining for hours to buy a couple of items, they will go to freestanding McDonald's or 7-11 instead.

[tangent4ronpaul]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4G-0g9PRrE

What a fucking police state scumbag!

-t

[Anti Federalist]

Gotta keep up the insults even on topics we agree on, huh.

Oh stop.

There was no insult here. (In fact, I don't think I've ever insulted you.)

I have deduced, from your posts, the direction that your thoughts run and your general view of things.

You asked:


By the gods, when are our politicians going to get a clue?

That question implies two things:

One - That clueless, inept, bungling politicians have created this problem.

Two - That if only one morning they (the politicians) would wake up, have an earth shattering, soul shaking epiphany, then all would be right with the world and mass repeals of mindless laws and regulations would ensue.

In my view this is wrong, because it assumes that the politicians are not doing exactly what government minions always do, expand their power and control.

It may look to like mindless "overkill" to some, to those of us like myself, more cynical conspiratorial minded, it smacks of something much more sinister.

The most murderous authoritarian regimes the world has ever known, would not have been able to do anything, had it not been for an army of mid level functionaries, eager to "just do their job and follow orders" for a weekly paycheck, and the willing ruling class, ready to rubber stamp any atrocity that came down the pike, just so long as their position was perceived as secure.

Until you are willing to embrace the fact that the above are the operating rules for all government, then you'll continue to hack at the branches and not at the root.

[Marenco]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGPjq9hAsJE

[Dark_Horse_Rider]

Bless this man for all he has done to stand against tyranny and work for liberty for our nation and the world.

[AxisMundi]

Oh stop.

There was no insult here. (In fact, I don't think I've ever insulted you.)

Do I really need to go back into our posting history and supply quotes?


I have deduced, from your posts, the direction that your thoughts run and your general view of things.

You asked:

That question implies two things:

One - That clueless, inept, bungling politicians have created this problem.

Two - That if only one morning they (the politicians) would wake up, have an earth shattering, soul shaking epiphany, then all would be right with the world and mass repeals of mindless laws and regulations would ensue.

In my view this is wrong, because it assumes that the politicians are not doing exactly what government minions always do, expand their power and control.

It may look to like mindless "overkill" to some, to those of us like myself, more cynical conspiratorial minded, it smacks of something much more sinister.

The most murderous authoritarian regimes the world has ever known, would not have been able to do anything, had it not been for an army of mid level functionaries, eager to "just do their job and follow orders" for a weekly paycheck, and the willing ruling class, ready to rubber stamp any atrocity that came down the pike, just so long as their position was perceived as secure.

Until you are willing to embrace the fact that the above are the operating rules for all government, then you'll continue to hack at the branches and not at the root.

Yup, one can sure ascertain with one hundred percent probability the complete political ideology of a person with just a few lines read on an internet forum. (insert eye rolling emoticon here)

My political ideology is very complicated, simply due to a few major factors. One, I am not locked into any one political ideology in the first place. I am a registered Independent, a Social Moderate, and a Fiscal Conservative. I have no loyalties to appear to maintain towards any political party, ideology, or candidate. Two, politics and government are horridly complicated themselves. Three, I refuse to take anything that comes down the turnpike at face value, particularly anything generated by the media, especially anything generated by talking suits or blogs. I investigate a matter and then form my own opinions.

Example? There is no valid, secular reason to discriminated against gays - The Constitution preserves a church and/or clergyman's rights not to conduct religious wedding ceremonies for gays.

Another example pertinent to this thread? The government is well within it's power to regulate airlines and airline safety - The government has no right to intrude into our Constitutional Rights as citizens to accomplish this.

Also, clueless politicians did indeed create this problem. "Clueless" has many uses and pertains to many concerns. Will they suddenly wake up with an epiphany one day? Perhaps, after We the People, their employers, wake up and hand them their collective asses on a silver platter using the democratic process.

And hey, people disagree. It happens. I see nothing "sinister" in this. I will refuse to make rather far fetched connection with totalitarian regimes in this matter. Government has been trying to wrest more power since day one. It is nothing new. However, I will refuse to indulge in mindless propaganda and plain fantasies, and actually try and do something about these asinine, ineffective and counter productive intrusions on to our rights.

1. I will refuse to fly.
2. I will continue my letter writing campaigns to my hired employees in Congress.