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Bush Causes Cell Phone Ban
An anonymous reader writes "When President George Bush visits Sydney, Australia for the APEC Summit in September, all cell phone calls within the radius of a football field will be suppressed. The president's motorcade will be shadowed by a helicopter equipped with signal-jamming equipment. Terrorists have used mobile phones to detonate remote-controlled bombs in Iraq and elsewhere in the world." There are other ways to detonate explosives remotely. Doesn't seem like the smartest thing to let potential enemies know of such plans in advance.
Title should read "Al-Qaeda scare causes widespread FUD in US and Aussie govts".
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
I am sure that this isn't the only countermeasure that they are taking. Its good to publish this one, though, so people know in advance their cell phones won't work. The other counter measures probably don't affect personal electronic devices in the same manner.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
What's the legality of using signal-jamming equipment? I mean for non-presidents. Obviously, whatever the president does is always legal.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Nothing screams low key approach like a helicopter blaring above.
Wasn't Bush given a mobile phone after 9/11?
How would they inform him if a problem occurs?
liqbase
Will people be able to hear anything he says in the open with a helicopter overhead?
Oh wait that's right - it won't matter.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
The president's motorcade will be shadowed by a helicopter equipped with signal-jamming equipment.
I'm just hoping it's not black, for the sake of the tinfoil-hat crowd...
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
With the terrorists probably not using the most advanced triggering mechanisms, couldn't the jamming itself cause a bomb to go off? Anybody who understands how it all works, please comment.
Unless your talking about a really big fing bomb (which these terrorist generally don't use and if they had wouldn't need cellphones etc to use) the blast range is a few feet at best. Meaning it will receive the jamming long before there is anything interesting to blow up.
Security theater at its very best, folks... Only there may be an ulterior motive here. The Seattle WTO riots were co-ordinated via cellphone. Someone has taken the lesson to heart. Oh well, it's back to walkie-talkies for the concerned activists.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Bush can't count that high.
--
Censored by Technorati
that's great and all but I was under the impression most serious terrorists didn't really care if they die or maybe even intent on blowing themselves up anyway.
Put this technology into cinemas.
Summation 2
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
They practically wanted to take over London when he visited. US agents were to be armed and given ridiculous powers (the we can shoot who we want and are not to be held accountable was particularly amusing). The usual visiting dignatary events were ignored and large portions of the city were closed to the public if Bush was anywhere near.
The heavy handed approach is a really good way to make a very poor impression with the citizens of nation you are visiting.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
The article forgot to mention that the president's mere presence causes plants to wilt and die within a football field's length of the president.
You're thinking of Cheney...
This guy's the limit!
Help, i need the police! The presidents motorcade is approaching and I can see a sni.. hello? hello?!
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
So much for mobile phone radio frequencies interfering with saftey-critical avionics! I guess milirtary helicopters don't have the most vulneable equipment (namely the credit card readers in seatback phones).
In other news: President stung to death by bees driven into a frenzy by mobile phone radiation... (Yes, yes I know the mobile phones affect bees thing has been debuinked).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
That this article solidly refuses the claim? (of course, you have to believe another politician from the Coalition of the Killing).
To have Bush covered in a cone of reduced civil liberties is perhaps the most honest herald to ever signal a leader's presence.
His "legacy" practically writes itself.
There really isn't any need for bloodshed
Just do it with a little more finesse
If you can slip a tablet into someone's coffee
Then it avoids an awful lot of mess
I guess the point of terrorism is to make a really big bang, not just commit "murder by numbers".
Read any good sonnets lately?
This is a perfect example of what Bruce Schneier calls "movie plot security" - looks good to have black helicopters flying around but doesn't really achieve much.
y
http://www.google.com/search?q=movie+plot+securit
PS: Yes, the Madrid bombers used cell phones to detonate the bombs, but they didn't do it by calling the 'phone. They used the alarm clock function.
PPS: How till this prevent suicide bombers, etc.?
No sig today...
thats a good point. who is responsible if a missed phone call means an accident victim doesnt make it?
I think we would be better off in the US president just stays in the USA where he is safe and people love him.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Is that an American football field or an Australian Rules football field?
Seriously, though, can't we just use yards or meters? I don't know about other countries, but here in the U.S. we spend more mental energy envisioning big rotating or end-to-end football fields around or next to things.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Bruce Schneier has already commented on this and the effectiveness of such a measure. He's written about things like this before - it's interesting, once you start thinking about security related issues (especially if you read his blog, I guess :), you read an article like this and go "well, gee, I guess now The Evil Terrorists know this one particular method won't work, they can just cross it off their project plan for this particular event and focus on other more effective measures".
Also, hopefully noone has an actual emergency while this thing is going past. I'd hate for someone to have a heart attack or be trying to call in a fire or something and not be able to use their cell phone. Or dial for the police in case they see suspicious people near the motorcade. You know, like people with beards.
I hear this suggested periodically, and it's, simply put, a very poor idea, that's not been thought through at all.
There are a lot of us who DO really have to have cellphones and pagers active 24x7, who are also smart and polite enough to put them on vibrate only, and to leave the theater if we need to respond. And, no, I'm not just talking geeks. That includes members of the medical and law enforcement professions, as well, where receiving an unexpected page or call really may be critical, and yes (not trying to be melodramatic), might just save someone's life.
Stop thinking technology is the answer to what is a SOCIAL problem. Grow a spine, and hold people responsible for their actions and their effect upon others around them, rather than trying to hide behind a bad technological band aid.
The answer is NOT to restrict the use of technology for those who use it properly, but to throw the asshats who are disruptive out of the theater, regardless of whether or not they happen to have a phone, or a pager.
(God forbid that anyone should actually have any personal responsibility, or actually have to confront someone obnoxious.)
</rant>
We now return you to your regularly scheduled pithy remarks about the idiocy of using this technology to attempt to protect a man so (deservedly) loathed that they think something like this might actually be necessary. I, of course, refer to the continuing dissemination of FUD, not the jamming, per se.
Who, in his autobiography, admitted to lying to animal shelters so that he could adopt their cats, take them home, vivisect and kill them.
Of course, it's also possible that you're not thinking at all, that you're trying to use "Slashdot thinks Republican leaders would kill kittens" as some sort of slur against Slashdot, because you didn't know that until a few months ago Senate Republicans were in fact led by a man who killed kittens. For future irony, I suggest accusing the anti-Bush crowd of thinking that Bush would illegally wiretap our phones without search warrants or that Cheney would shoot a guy in the face.
When I can't talk on my phone while drinking a cup of coffee, and reading the paper, and watching TV, while driving to work in my SUV... the terrorists have won.
So America has finally wizened and have sent Bush to a penal colony. Good on ya, Mates!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
"What I'm trying to get at, you can't stop anyone who wants to kill Bush, so maybe he should just give up and resign from the job."
Wrong. You can't stop *everyone* who wants to kill bush, assuming infinite. It is child's play to stop one person - look for the guy with the big missile launcher and arrest him before he can get a lock. Stopping anyone is easy. Stopping everyone is the challenge.
Oh, and so far the secret service has a pretty good record. One presidential death since they have been guarding presidents, and two failed attempts that got as far as shooting. Not to mention the countless other attempts they have nipped in the bud. And for our current president they seem to be doing a good job, seeing as most of the world hates bush and yet he lives on.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
Just another opportunity to Bush-Bash.
If they didn't announce this, then people would flame the admin for being secretive.
When they do announce it, they are flamed for being paranoid and infringing our rights and crap like that.
I disapprove of some of the Bush admin policies as much as the next person, but the Bush flaming gets old.
Why are we not discussing the type of jamming technologies used by the government and which frequencies they may/may-not be jamming?
"When President George Bush visits Sydney, Australia for the APEC Summit in September, all dissent within the radius of a 5km of the visiting dignitary will be suppressed with immediate lethal force. During the days of the visit, curfew will begin one hour earlier and last one hour longer.
Kids! Parents! Let's give Mr. Bush a cheery welcome to Australia! Additional chocolate rations have been approved for minors under the age of 16 wishing to cheer President Bush, these will be available after each event. Adults will receive $10 for each cheering event, please contact your police department for further details."
Yes. Since the emergency number in Australia is 000.
Being oncall 24x7 isn't a matter of hubris. It's often a dictate of a specific job.
And, yes, sometimes, those people are very hard to replace. Do you think there's a neuro-surgeon, or a member of a rapid response hostage rescue team on every corner, perhaps? Being on-call doesn't mean not having a life. It means finding a balance between life and specific job responsibilities.
The point is that the suggestion to jam phones is trying to solve the wrong problem. Cell phones and pagers are NOT the problem -- rude, thoughtless PEOPLE are the problem.
By trying to solve the wrong problem, you only make it harder for reasonable people to actually try to maintain that balance. The rude, thoughtless people, however, are still going to be disruptive, even if they don't have a working cell phone.