G4S - the Anglo-Danish conglomerate - has put the security of the London
Olympics at risk. Or so it would seem according to recent headlines.
The
largest private security company in the world, G4S employs over 650,000
people in 125 countries. But the news broke last week that it could not
provide the 13,000 security guards it had promised for the Olympics.
Britain's
muckraking journalists responded with aplomb. The papers abounded with
stories of inept trainees asleep in classes or lacking in English. Other
would-be security guards failed to spot pistols, bombs and grenades.
Certainly, G4S' shenanigans have laid the ground for a scandal of Olympic proportions if terrorist attacks do occur.
The
British armed forces now have to provide at short notice an additional
3,500 personnel on top of 13,500 already committed to the Olympics.
Troops returning from Afghanistan and others who were training for
deployment will make up for G4S' apparent inability to recruit enough
rent-a-cops. Real police are also being taken off their beats to fill
the gaps.
Read on...
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Showing posts with label security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label security. Show all posts
These Guys Will Stop You From Killing Your Boss
The Primary, tall and flinty with a graying goatee, has decided he's in the mood for shopping, a development that's got David Perez all worked up. I'm sitting with Perez in a Chevy Silverado in downtown Santa Monica. A fit ex-Marine, Perez is in charge of the Primary's six-man protection detail. For 20 minutes, we've been waiting around in a grocery store parking lot, but now the Primary has parked his Porsche 911 Carrera at a shopping strip nearly a mile away. Though Perez already has three "countersurveillance" experts on the scene, he's antsy to join them. His client has a stalker, whom one of the team members had spotted earlier. The Silverado crawls through glacial traffic. "You're driving like an old lady!" Perez barks. "Catch the green!"
Perez and his partner Mike Gomez, a bodyguard resembling The Sopranos' Silvio, finally track down their client at a Barnes & Noble. Two of the countersurveillance guys go back to scouting for menaces, while Perez and Gomez, both of whom are trained sharpshooters and martial-arts experts, step in as the Primary's "close protection" team. Shoppers stare at the entourage, straining to recognize someone famous.
Arrests, but wedding security declared 'huge success'
Royal wedding
The biggest security operation in a generation was hailed as a "huge success" today as police delivered on their promise to deal robustly with potential wedding troublemakers.
As the royal couple arrived at Buckingham Palace, police revealed they had made 43 arrests among the crowd to ensure the event went smoothly.
Officers swooped on two minor anti-wedding protests in central London but said scenes were calm.
A police source said: "It's all gone to plan so far, it's fantastic."
The arrests were made "within and outside the event footprint", Scotland Yard said.
Offences included an allegation of a sex attack on a 14-year-old girl, criminal damage and 25 breaches of the peace.
Ninety nine people were banned from the City of Westminster as more than 5,000 officers ensured the event went like clockwork.
Borrowed interest. Tom
When it comes to summit security, police answer to no one
With neither legislation nor precedent to limit their powers, the rights of Canadians come off second best
Adam Radwanski
Adam Radwanski
It's known as the “red zone.” But given the extent to which police are being left to their own devices in locking down a large swath of Toronto for the G20, the “grey zone” might be more apt.
The federal government did police and local residents few favours by sticking the summit smack in the middle of downtown. That it’s in an area more difficult to secure than other available locations, such as the city’s Exhibition grounds, forced more heavy-handed enforcement than should have been necessary.
But it doesn’t help that, as officers are expected to balance security with civil liberties, there’s neither legislation nor clear legal precedent specifying what they can and can’t do. From the handling of protesters to the requirement of identification to enter public spaces and private homes, it’s left to their discretion.
Lawyers in court to stop police from using sound cannons during G20
Civil rights groups will be in a Toronto court today, hoping a judge will stop police from using controversial sound cannons during protests.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Labour Congress are seeking a court injunction.
G20 traffic fence can be closed at ‘a moment’s notice,’ police say
Jill Mahoney
Construction of the traffic fence in downtown Toronto is finished, allowing officers to close the area to motorists at “a moment’s notice” if there is a security risk, police say.
Workers finished assembling the outer barrier surrounding the G20 summit zone on Monday morning.
“The fence is at a stage where … if we have any reason to believe there’s a security risk and we need to secure and close down that area completely, we have the ability to do that now,” said Constable Wendy Drummond, a spokeswoman for the Integrated Security Unit that is handling G20 security.
Const. Drummond said an emergency closure could happen on “a moment’s notice”. Fencing for the traffic diversion zone extends from Spadina Avenue in the west to Yonge Street in the east, and from King Street West south to Lake Shore Boulevard.
Hume: G20 and the architecture of paranoia.
Looking west on Wellington St. from Bay St., Christopher Hume wonders whether these fences erected for the G20 are there to keep us out -- or world leaders in.
CHRISTOPHER HUME/TORONTO STARJudging from the preparations now under way for the G20 meeting later this month in Toronto, the world is no longer safe for the leaders of the planet’s largest economies. Whether that’s true or not we’ll never know; they will be hidden away behind so much fencing and weaponry, they will be invisible.
Still, one can’t help but wonder if the point of all this effort and expenditure — $1.3 billion and counting — is to keep them in or us out.
In either case, it says much about the state of our civilization that leadership — or what passes for it — has grown so wildly disconnected, distrusted and disliked by those being led that Canada feels it necessary to beggar itself to cover the cost of its own worst fears.
Security is one thing; paranoia quite another. What’s happening now in Toronto has little to do with the former, and everything to do with the latter.
Crimbrary is thinking about a pool to guess how many places/times this fence will be breached. Let me know if you're interested. Tom
G20 summit forces Bay Street to move house
Bankers, lawyers and traders will work from home, shift to temporary offices and hotels outside security cordon
Boyd Erman and Jeff Gray
Boyd Erman and Jeff Gray
The heart of Canadian finance will shift from the gleaming towers of downtown Toronto to a series of non-descript buildings around the city's fringes to keep markets pumping during the G20 summit.
Banks and law firms that negotiate and broker deals are concerned less with G20 protesters causing violence during the June 26-27 leaders' summit, and more with the troubles that crowds and security would cause for employees getting to work.
The people that can are being told to work from home, or to take time off. But for many traders and other key deal makers enmeshed in non-stop global transactions, it's not that simple.
Law firms headquartered downtown are making plans such as booking hotel rooms for crucial “deal teams” who are working on time-sensitive negotiations that can't stop for protests. Financial behemoths such as Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal are prepared to move hundreds of their traders to secret backup locations scattered around Toronto, where full trading floors are ready and waiting for just such an evacuation.
Come on. This is getting ridiculous. Just move the summit to Camp Borden. Let the leaders rough it. By the way, watch the video at this link. Your billion dollars in action. Tom
Wanted: Jailhouse doctors for G20 summit
But critics fear physicians will treat injured protesters to keep them in custody
A police officer wears a sound cannon to be used during the G20 sumit in Toronto this month. Police in riot gear stand behind during a security demonstration on Thursday.
CARLOS OSORIO/TORONTO SA glimpse behind the G20 security curtain
Most observers won’t see what the police and soldiers are doing in the hot zone
Toronto police will have 22 dog handlers with 34 police dogs at its disposal for the G20 summit. The unit demonstrated its crowd control techniques on June 3, 2010.
CARLOS OSORIO/TORONTO STARJennifer Yang Staff Reporter
What exactly does $1 billion worth of summit security look like? Most Canadians will never truly know, seeing as the bulk of security efforts will unfold behind the scenes at the G20 summit this month.
But at a “technical briefing” Thursday morning, summit officials offered a snapshot of G20 security on the streets this June 26 and 27.
Hosted by the summit’s RCMP-led Integrated Security Unit, the event was a veritable dog and pony show of law enforcement — quite literally, in some cases, because some demonstrations involved K-9 and horse-mounted units. The phalanx of law enforcement officers included cops on bicycles, cops in riot gear, cops with bomb-defusing robots; security units also demonstrated everything from motorcades to the controversial “sound cannons” or long range acoustic devices (LRADs) that may be used on restive protest crowds. The show of force was both reassuring and disturbing to behold.
Do these stories have any purpose other than to intimidate potential protesters. Tom
Budget watchdog probing summits' $1-billion price tag
Tories must provide records on security costs, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page says
Steven Chase
Steven Chase
Parliament’s budget watchdog has begun probing the hefty and controversial $1-billion security bill for the two global summits the Harper government is holding next month in Ontario.
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page says his study will founder, however, if the Conservatives fail to provide him with the necessary records to scrutinize policing and protective spending for the Group of Eight and Group of 20 meetings.
“We will investigate with the purpose of issuing a report for parliamentarians and Canadians,” Mr. Page told The Globe and Mail.
“For the report to be helpful, we will need co-operation from the government on information and this will need to be done in a timely manner.”
Anyone think the Conservative government is going to cooperate with the budget watchdog? Tom
The siege mentality of back-to-back summits will cost us dearly
Spending $1-billion to play host is preposterous
by Jeffrey Simpson
There was a time, when Gerald Ford was president of the United States and Pierre Trudeau was prime minister of Canada, that seven world leaders gathered informally once a year.
by Jeffrey Simpson
There was a time, when Gerald Ford was president of the United States and Pierre Trudeau was prime minister of Canada, that seven world leaders gathered informally once a year.
The meeting was called the G7 summit, and the countries formed a cozy club of Western democracies. The leaders brought a handful of aides, didn’t make grandiose declarations, but rather talked among themselves about the issues of moment. They got to know each other better, and that was no bad thing.
The world has mightily changed since those mid-1970s
Mark these words, based on briefings from officials from four participant countries: The G20, at least for the Canadian media, will be the most grossly over-covered event of 2010.
Meanwhile the Canadian deficit continues to go through the roof. Tom
Toronto streets get more surveillance cameras for G20
Police began installing 77 more closed circuit security cameras around downtown Toronto Friday in preparation for the upcoming G20 summit.
They will remain up and in use until “the completion of the event, when there’s no longer an issue of security,” said Toronto police Const. Wendy Drummond.
The cameras are “similar to other ones we’ve deployed in the past,” Drummond said. “They’re going to be very recognizable. They will be clearly marked with ‘police’ on them.”
Drummond said the installations will occur over the next few weeks, with the first cameras going up Friday along Adelaide St. The exact locations will be disclosed to the public once they are installed, Drummond said.
Security, At What Cost?
Quantifying people’s trade-offs
across liberty, privacy
and security
Neil Robinson, Dimitris Potoglou, Chong Woo Kim,
Peter Burge, Richard Warnes
Sponsored by the RAND Europe Board of Trustees
The heightened security environment in the United Kingdom today is resplendent with examples of government policy that must strike a delicate balance between strengthening security without jeopardising public liberties and personal privacy. The introduction of national identity cards and biometric passports, the expansion of the DNA database, and cross-departmental sharing of information raise a number of privacy issues. Civil liberties may be suspended by the exercise of stop and search powers by the police or detention of suspects prior to a trial. Much of the current privacy vs. security debate occurs at an emotional level with little evidence informing the argument. This report outlines the results of a stated preference discrete choice modelling study that sought to objectively understand the real privacy, liberty and security trade-offs of individuals so that policy makers can be better informed about individuals true preferences in this domain. Three real-life case studies were investigated where these factors come into play; applying for a passport; travel on the national rail network and attendance at a major public event such as the opening ceremony of the Olympics. A panel of internet users demographically weighted to the UK population were asked to choose amongst different alternatives for each of the scenarios. The data was analysed and individuals were found to be willing to pay for advanced CCTV cameras with facial recognition technology, X-Ray machines & body scanners and various forms of security personnel. Socio-demographic segments in the sample also became evident.
Read on...
This is a Rand Corporation Technical Report. Tom
across liberty, privacy
and security
Neil Robinson, Dimitris Potoglou, Chong Woo Kim,
Peter Burge, Richard Warnes
Sponsored by the RAND Europe Board of Trustees
The heightened security environment in the United Kingdom today is resplendent with examples of government policy that must strike a delicate balance between strengthening security without jeopardising public liberties and personal privacy. The introduction of national identity cards and biometric passports, the expansion of the DNA database, and cross-departmental sharing of information raise a number of privacy issues. Civil liberties may be suspended by the exercise of stop and search powers by the police or detention of suspects prior to a trial. Much of the current privacy vs. security debate occurs at an emotional level with little evidence informing the argument. This report outlines the results of a stated preference discrete choice modelling study that sought to objectively understand the real privacy, liberty and security trade-offs of individuals so that policy makers can be better informed about individuals true preferences in this domain. Three real-life case studies were investigated where these factors come into play; applying for a passport; travel on the national rail network and attendance at a major public event such as the opening ceremony of the Olympics. A panel of internet users demographically weighted to the UK population were asked to choose amongst different alternatives for each of the scenarios. The data was analysed and individuals were found to be willing to pay for advanced CCTV cameras with facial recognition technology, X-Ray machines & body scanners and various forms of security personnel. Socio-demographic segments in the sample also became evident.
Read on...
This is a Rand Corporation Technical Report. Tom
The Business of Intelligence
Corporate intelligence-gathering harkens back to COINTELPRO
TORONTO—In the US, a new model of law enforcement has emerged in which police, military, security contractors and large corporations are collaborating on intelligence gathering. Are the 2010 Olympics ushering this new paradigm into Canada?
The security committee for the 2010 Olympics Task Force, based in Washington State, is at the forefront of planning US security efforts for the games. According to The Globe and Mail this group brings together government agencies from both sides of the border, more than 100 from the US and 17 from Canada.
Documents acquired by The Dominion reveal that this committee consists of not only the US Military, Canadian Forces, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but also “Pacific Northwest Private Sector Company Volunteers.” The amount the US will spend on Olympic security has not been disclosed.
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