Federal Roadblocks and Checkpoints Creating Capital Maze

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 - Each day seems to bring a new reminder that this is a city under siege by an invisible enemy.

On Monday, following a terrorism alert naming financial institutions as targets, parking spaces were eliminated around the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. By Tuesday, the Capitol Police had closed a street and established 14 traffic checkpoints around Capitol Hill.

By Thursday, the police were inspecting vehicles near the Federal Reserve. And by Friday, the Secret Service was planning to close a sidewalk outside the Treasury Department. More is to come, security officials said.

On its own, each measure might have seemed inconsequential. But together, they have brought an explosion of denunciations from local officials fed up with the growing maze of concrete barriers and guard posts around their city. They say the latest round of fortifications seems excessive, intrusive and even harmful.

"It's an overreaction," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's nonvoting delegate in Congress, who contends street closings have created havoc for emergency vehicles and choked off the city's evacuation routes.
...
But on another level, many here are increasingly worried that the city is changing in fundamental ways. Institutions that were once beacons of open government, particularly the Capitol, have imposed stricter security than at any time in history, including when Washington was under imminent threat of invasion during the War of 1812 and the Civil War, historians said. Even monuments and museums are being encircled by protective walls.

http://nytimes.com/2004/08/07/politics/07capital.html?hp

[MrSandman]

1. And another step was taken on the road from democracy...

The War on Terror and the War on Drugs are leading US toward the federalization of police powers. The ease of universal access to al states DMV records and the increased efficiency of NCIC make this only a couple of pen strokes away.

Gradual federal "protection" of "vital points of strategic interest" will desensitize the public and also begin to set precedent to be cited in future court challenges.

Anyone who believes that "states rights" Republicans will not do this should heed the usurpation of the deliberations of the Fla Supreme Court in 2000.

[alarimer]

2. You can't even take pictures

Of the Capitol anymore (because you might be a terrorist!). I will never visit DC again or the Statue of Liberty because of all the security. Although it is appropriate, given the erosion of liberty in this country, that to get into the statue of Liberty you have to go through many security checks.

[starroute]

4. And it sound like you can't even get into the statue any more

At least if I was reading the article correctly, all you can do is go up to the top of the pedastel and look at the inside of the statue through a glass ceiling.

It seems like liberty has become a matter of look-but-don't touch.

[pfitz59]

3. Midevel Times

The great wall of China didn't keep the mongol hordes at bay. None of these fuckers knows history.