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Secret Service Plans New Fence, Full Scale White House Replica, But No Moat
HughPickens.com writes The NYT reports that the Secret Service is recruiting some of its best athletes to serve as pretend fence jumpers at a rural training ground outside Washington in a program to develop a new fence around the White House that will keep intruders out without looking like a prison. Secret Service officials acknowledge that they cannot make the fence foolproof; that would require an aesthetically unacceptable and politically incorrect barrier. Prison or Soviet-style design is out, and so is anything that could hurt visitors, like sharp edges or protuberances. Instead, the goal is to deter climbers or at least delay them so that officers and attack dogs have a few more seconds to apprehend them. In addition, there might be alterations to the White House grounds but no moat, as recently suggested by Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee. "When I hear moat, I think medieval times," says William Callahan, assistant director for the office of protective operation at the Secret Service.
The Times also reports that the Secret Service wants to spend $8 million to build a detailed replica of the White House in Beltsville, Maryland to aid in training officers and agents to protect the real thing. "Right now, we train on a parking lot, basically," says Joseph P. Clancy, the director of the Secret Service. "We put up a makeshift fence and walk off the distance between the fence at the White House and the actual house itself. We don't have the bushes, we don't have the fountains, we don't get a realistic look at the White House." The proposed replica would provide what Clancy describes as a "more realistic environment, conducive to scenario-based training exercises," for instructing those who must protect the president's home. It would mimic the facade of the White House residence, the East and West Wings, guard booths, and the surrounding grounds and roads. The request comes six months after an intruder scaled a wrought-iron fence around the White House and ran through an unlocked front door of the residence and into the East Room before officers tackled him.
The Times also reports that the Secret Service wants to spend $8 million to build a detailed replica of the White House in Beltsville, Maryland to aid in training officers and agents to protect the real thing. "Right now, we train on a parking lot, basically," says Joseph P. Clancy, the director of the Secret Service. "We put up a makeshift fence and walk off the distance between the fence at the White House and the actual house itself. We don't have the bushes, we don't have the fountains, we don't get a realistic look at the White House." The proposed replica would provide what Clancy describes as a "more realistic environment, conducive to scenario-based training exercises," for instructing those who must protect the president's home. It would mimic the facade of the White House residence, the East and West Wings, guard booths, and the surrounding grounds and roads. The request comes six months after an intruder scaled a wrought-iron fence around the White House and ran through an unlocked front door of the residence and into the East Room before officers tackled him.
The Animal Kingdom park has lots of cool visual tricks so you can't see the things keeping the animals from eating the visitors (and/or vice versa). Things like ha-has can be made almost invisible from both sides, with good landscaping.
Eh, a lot of people need practice and routine to drill things into their head, and get them a sense of how to respond, especially when matters get a touch more complex. That's why sports teams run plays in a live environment rather than just learn it in their head, and why actors rehearse a play rather than just memorize lines, and why firemen practice putting out some buildings, and more.
And yes, that includes a lot of the more involved security jobs. Your local police probably has a number of training programs.
At the same time, ugly fences are not an issue when it comes to US embassies on foreign soil.
A good example might be the one at 1, Liberty Square, Budapest, Hungary.
Bonus points for the address...
Agreed.
I can think of a few modern large buildings in the UK with linked duck ponds with ducks, water lillies, fountains etc. in landscaped grounds. They look attractive and it's only when you stop and really look you realise their main functionis a moden day moat.
Indeed apart from protection, the visual amenity is worthwhile (relatively low cost to provide a place to feast your eyes at lunchtime) and they also offer the potential for a heat sink for cooling.
Just make sure you keep a view on expenses though (see parliamentary expenses scandal a few years back - Douglas Hogg claiming moat cleaning on his family's ancestral home or Peter Viggers claiming for a duck house)
Or just practice when he's not there.
Thus giving anyone passing by a free demo of what will and won't happen if they decided to give it a try.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Athletes certainly run fast and jump high in well defined conditions but the Fosbury flop is clearly not the best way to jump over fences.
A parkour team would probably do much better considering that obstacle clearing is their specialty.