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The Hi-Tech Security at the Super Bowl
Hugh Pickens writes "As millions of fans sit glued to their sets next Sunday, one part of the game they will not see is the massive deployment of federal and local law enforcement resources to achieve what is being called the most technologically secure Super Bowl in history, an event that has been officially designated as a National Security Special Event (PDF). At the top of the list are gamma-ray cargo and vehicles scanners that can reportedly see through six inches of steel to reveal the contents of large vehicles. 'We can detect people, handguns and rifles,' says Customs and Border Protection Officer Brian Bell. 'You'd be a fool to bring something into that stadium that you shouldn't. We're going to catch it. Our goal is to look at every vehicle that makes a delivery inside the stadium and inside the secure perimeter.' Next is the 51-foot Featherlite mobile command center for disaster response that will support the newly constructed $18 million Regional Operations Center (ROC) for the Marion County Department of Homeland Security that will serve as a fusion center for coordinating the various federal agencies involved in providing security for the Super Bowl. One interesting security measure are the 'Swiveloc' explosion-proof manhole covers (video) that Indianapolis has spent $150,000 installing that are locked down during the Super Bowl. In case of an underground explosion, the covers lift a couple of inches off the ground — enough to vent gas out without feeding in oxygen to make an explosion bigger — before falling back into place. Finally the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI has installed a network of cameras that will be just a click away for government officials. 'If you had the right (Internet) address, you could set up a laptop anywhere and you could watch the camera from there,' says Brigadier General Stewart Goodwin."
You know the terrorists have won when...
...budget cuts to space exploration. Good thing Football is safe.
Hand egg.
'If you had the right (Internet) address, you could set up a laptop anywhere and you could watch the camera from there,' says Brigadier General Stewart Goodwin."
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.
Who sets this kind of thing up without any authentication?!
They have just created a challenge in regards to just that Internet address is...
What happens is that two football clubs football at each other and the one that footballs the hardest wins at football. That and something about Michael Jackson's sisters nipple.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Sweet - get the TSA in there to feel up all the big, hairy, stoked-up sports fans with facepaint and a few six-packs already down the hatch. Who needs a half-time show, just put a camera on that fiasco.
Or they'll cancel the 'ole bleedin' lot!
Make the NFL foot this whole security bill.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
They were because they KEEP EXPLODING!!!
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/29819089/detail.html
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Except in Egypt, where even a home team win can lead to 78 deaths on the field.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
we won't have those constant superbowl terrorist attacks!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Someone mixes tiny nitroglycerin tablets with breadcrumbs and the Super Bowl is canceled due to pigeon poop.
"Oh boy!" thought Milton, "A article on football! And not the soccer version, the American football kind!" He could barely contain his troll-citement. He never fully recovered from the traumatizing memories of high school where the sports jocks viciously bullied him, and this was a perfect opportunity to remind the world how stupid the concept of this sport was! He put his fingers together, pondering on what kind of "insightful" comment would get modded up by his fellow neck-beards. A reference to hand-egg and the stupidity of the name? Nah.. been done before.. Perhaps a comment on the overall barbaric nature of the sport and a jab to all the rednecks and jocks that enjoy it? Better.. but maybe...
"Wait a minute..." he thought. "Maybe I should be contributing to the contents of the article? Perhaps I should mention how government funds shouldn't be involved here, but they'll be there anyway due to close ties between football and the military. Maybe something on security theater and a reference to airports and perhaps a lack of any terrorist related activities in football games?" But the thought quickly left his mind, as there was too much bitterness towards those jock types he worked with in marketing (and couldn't stand) and instead posted "HURRR maybe they should up the radiation on the metal detectors so the in-breed hicks that attend the game get sterilized!!"
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
It's a thing, and yes, what it sounds like: they have a radioactive source that gives off gamma rays, which pass through a truck, and then gamma ray detectors that look at what passed through. Sort of like a heavy-duty xray machine, except at these sizes/energies, the gamma-ray machines are actually safer than getting blasted with xrays.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
And while all this fear mongering, submission to armed authority, 'convenience arrests', and security theater is happening, thousands of Americans will be singing
"mumble mumble mumble something something Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!"
*shakes head sadly*
Yeah. Enjoy the game. Really. There's not a lot else left now, is there?
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Sweet - get the TSA in there to feel up all the big, hairy, stoked-up sports fans with facepaint and a few six-packs already down the hatch
"Feel up"? Don't you mean "irradiate"? G-ray scanner capable of looking through inches of steel isn't too safe for gonads. Especially if they don't shut down the source if traffic gets tied up in front of it.
If most of 'em weren't already past breeding age it might make a nontrivial improvement in the nerd/jock ratio of upcoming generations.
(Yes, yes, I know they said it was for use on cargo vehicles. But if operated with the usual competence level of government projects ...)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"As millions of fans sit glued to their sets next Sunday"
It's this Sunday not next Sunday! =) Grammatically correct or not I don't know, but "this Sunday" is so much clearer.
you know drivers can get out of their vehicles? when all of this started I was a delivery driver, and going onto post I was always directed over, asked to get out, did the wand thing and they would xray the entire truck after a visual
It took some major editing, but I fixed that for you.
Clearly, that is exactly what a few people are allowed to do. And worse, they are allowed to throw the US Constitution out the window in the process.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You just ripped of one of the regular Joker plots that Batman has to foil.
Of course, this whole attack the superbowl thing is a re-used plot, too.
Yea but then the adversaries are the most technologically capable in history as well.
... getting on that wonder list for the sake of a prank might hamper their next flight to comic con.
Scanners that can look through 6" of steel you say ?
Does everybody have to take their shoes off as well ?
Such statements tickle the fancy of hackers that have no negative motives but love a challenge.
Then again
You'd be a fool to bring something into that stadium that you shouldn't. We're going to catch it.
So much for bringing your own booze or food in. The stadium concession business is safe!
Have gnu, will travel.
How many confirmed deaths in Vancouver hockey riot?
None you say?
Thought so. Even in Canukistan people don't kill over hockey.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
All I have to say to the Feds is: good luck with that.
Indiana is a "shall issue" concealed carry state. Indianapolis has an exception to concealed carry in city parks, but the stadium is not a city park.
What that means is: the Feds have no authority to prevent someone from taking a legally-carried concealed handgun into the stadium.
It may be against the stadium rules. That I don't know. But it isn't against the law.
What's the matter with you? Are you in favor of gratuitous violence?
Now, sit back and watch your football game.
Have gnu, will travel.
Medical x-rays are safer, but they don't come anywhere near penetrating a steel truck at that power. The kinds of x-ray machines needed to scan a whole truck are more like 5-10 MeV.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
>At the top of the list are gamma-ray cargo and vehicles scanners that can reportedly see through six inches of steel to reveal the contents of large vehicles.
Just wait until they use this on a vehicle that still has a human being still inside it when they turn on their death/maim ray.
They really want to open themselves up to that kind of liability?
--
BMO
Sincerely,
Indianapolis resident that works downtown.
just fucking go away please
A hundred comments and no one has mentioned the Goodyear blimp yet? Sad...
And we're all sitting here thinking, "A couple of engineers could figure out how to get around it in a matter of a few hours."
When do we get our government back?
----- obSig
If you've ever walked around Indy in the winter, you know some weird stuff is up with the manholes anyways. There are always huge piles of steam pouring out random locations around downtown.
I don't have time to make a sig
They bowl, silly.
no its soccer they kill over
Egyptian soccer riot: Death toll at 73
To be fair, this also happened in England and Belgium, although both times due to English "people".
I had the distinct displeasure of witnessing that event personally, and you know what asshat, I still believe that I would rather die at the hands of a terrorist then to live in a country that fears death so much that they would let a group of power hungry assholes control them and piss all over the document they swore to defend and support. So fuck off and grow a pair, freedom isn't free, it comes with risks. One of those is death.
I question the truth of the story's claims. A gamma source used for X-raying that is powerful enough to go through 6 inches of steel would require a radiation exclusion zone around the vehicle. The driver would have to exit the truck and move outside the zone. The statement "Officials said the VACIS machine can scan at least six semi-trucks within minutes, " is a distortion or even a lie, because in each truck's case, 1) the driver would have to exit the truck and move away 2) the scan would have to be done 3) the screen images would have to be examined in depth. This can't be done for six trucks as cited in a few minutes with full coverage of contents. I consult in the industry and the quoted numbers don't seem right. I really smell theatre here.
I'm not seeing how this is going to protect against terrorists who have followed the lesson of the successful terrorists of years past: Read Tom Clancy. I don't care how much high tech scanning you do of the people who get in, a terrorist with a nuke is still going to be able to get close enough to blow the whole place up.
Sort of like a heavy-duty xray machine, except at these sizes/energies, the gamma-ray machines are actually safer than getting blasted with xrays.
These are definitely not safe. To get any brightness from gamma rays requires much higher intensities due to lower interaction rates. I would definitely NOT want to be anywhere near one of these machines. One small misconfiguration, or someone standing in wrong spot, and you are blasted by radiation in range of mSv/min..
Frankly, this shit is ridicules. It's like the 1920s and their xray shoe fitting machines! Maybe it's time to get personal dosimeters to protect you from these "safety devices". And I'm someone that would not think twice about visiting Fukushima or Chernobyl or even living in most of the "contaminated" area.
Really? And here I was thinking the biggest football event was the world championship every four years.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you outlaw beer and tacos at a sports event, you will have a situation on your hands!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The problem with numbers is that you're assigning them to a single arbitrary time period. The correct way of saying that would to spend $38b on ensuring those very people are safe at all times in all parts of their lives.
If a hypothetical super bowl bombing doesn't occur then statistically several of your 10k people won't live to the end of the year anyway due to other problems. We spend ludicrous amounts of money against an unknown and unpredictable threat that is likely to affect only a minuscule percentage of our population, and given the current state of security is likely to remain a threat despite everyone's best efforts. All the while we can clearly see statistically people die every year and they don't get a dime spent on them.
Take the $38bn and put it into some basic healthcare if you want return on investment, not fighting the maybe terrorists.
No dude, sports are named after what they do the least during the game.
Basket Ball - The ball is in the basket for only a very small portion of the game.
Base Ball - The ball touches the base for only a very small portion of the game.
Foot Ball - The ball touches the foot for only a very small portion of the game.
Hand Egg would following this convention be Soccer, and only for the very short period of time where one team picks a fight with Manchester United and some poor striker ends up getting punched in the eggs.
Really? And here I was thinking the biggest football event was the world championship every four years.
yeah but this is only for the non US part of the world, so no one here really cares about it.
The person who owns the stadium, or having legal control and authority over it, is well within their rights to tell you that you may not possess a firearm. They can impose whatever conditions of occupancy they wish, and you must abide by them.
Whether or not a "no guns" sign has force of law depends on the State. But, at the end of the day, if it can be demonstrated in court that you knew or should have known that you were bound by the owner's "no guns" policy, and you are caught with one, it'll be criminally defiant trespass (or the particular State's equivalent). That happens to be a prohibiting offense in my State.
I love my right to keep and bear arms, but I love my private property rights even more. The former exists in part to protect the latter, so do not be surprised if you find yourself eating lead one day because you think you can CCW anywhere you please despite the property owner's terms and conditions.
A jihad upon the enemies of football!
"The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough." -- Eric S. Raymond
We're talking about millions or possibly billions of dollars for all this equipment crap, the logistics, the overtime pay for the local cops, the extra Feds, yadda yadda...
And where is all this money coming from? You can bet your sweet ass the NFL isn't spending a dime of its own money for all this. The NFL is like the roach motel of money: dollars go in, but they don't come out.
So, in Eric Cantor speak, how much medicare and social security is being cut to pay for all this, since the government isn't allowed to spend a fucking penny (remember how we lost our AAA credit rating?) without serious cuts elsewhere to pay for it.
Or is that only the case for programs the democrats want, and football is another matter entirely? I'm amazed that politicians will mouth off for hours on the floor of Congress about some minor bill for a park and how that's going to bankrupt the USA, but they feel they've got the money to burn for this crap?
You've gotta be kidding me. Excuse me, but this USA is bankrupt, fools! There are no jobs. The middle class is falling into poverty. Didn't you hear the Republican State of the Union response? How do we have the cash for this nonsense?
Sorry kid, Granny can't get dialysis because we hadda' gamma ray through six inches of steel to find nothing. Because we're frigging terrified of a bogeyman, a bodgeyman who we need to spend 15 billion to defend ourselves against a guy with a $12 rifle.
Look at our history since 9/11. It's appalling: Billions spent. Trillions spent. And yet, we can't defend against simple roadside bombs made from leftover munitions and a cell-phone. The bad guys spend $5 and we spend 50 Billion to defend against the $5 -- those numbers are NOT sustainable. It's insanity.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The reason the manhole covers had locks installed had nothing to do with security. It was because Indianapolis Power & Light substations, which are underground in downtown Indy, kept exploding and blowing manhole covers 20 ft in the air.
There were 4 such explosions last year.
Er, great. Isn't it pretty much a given that every subsequent Super Bowl will win that title?
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Someone has been watching too much.
Ben Affleck, yuck.