Bush Causes Cell Phone Ban 588
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.
isn't it interesting... (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Uhm.. (Score:5, Interesting)
But seriously (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds pretty mild (Score:5, Interesting)
The heavy handed approach is a really good way to make a very poor impression with the citizens of nation you are visiting.
Re:Sure its not exclusive (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see why he should need all this security though, even if the worst does happen and someone blows him sky high it's not like he's even remotely irreplacable and someone else can take over his job a couple of hours later without anything disasterous occuring.
You could say this would be a major coup for whatever terrorist organisation pulls it off but it wouldn't be if you didn't let it and just shrugged your shoulders "So, you killed the president. So what ? Someone else is doing his job now". This is beside the fact that were I terrorist looking for some good publicity for myself to help my recruitment drive killing Bush is probably the last thing I'd do considering all the good things he's done for me already.
Re:Sure its not exclusive (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Helicopter (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the heavy troop transports still sound like they do in movies about Vietnam, but the light ones and most of the attack helicopters are very quiet once they get up to speed. Presumably the one assigned to Bush will be flying high enough to keep the rotor wash from mussing his hair so I doubt the crowd will hear it at all.
It really is spooky to look over your shoulder and see an attack helicopter floating a couple hundred yards away when you had to idea it was even there.
Re:I've wondered about this... (Score:1, Interesting)
Schneier's Comments (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
You may be thinking of Bill Frist (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Should read... (Score:3, Interesting)
That should be obvious: Trigger the bomb by the jamming signal. As soon as the mobile phone doesn't find a network any more, the bomb is triggered. Additional call triggering can be used in case there just happens to be no jamming (in which case calling the phone would obviously work).
Re:Sure its not exclusive (Score:2, Interesting)
Why is it puzzling? They're not implementing all those draconian measures to protect you, they're doing it to secure and exercise their power.
The bottom line is that governments are now figuring out that they can basically do whatever the hell they want and there isn't a damned thing the population at large can do to stop them as long as they control the military and the law enforcement agencies. And they do.
To them, terrorists are both a nuisance and an opportunity. But they are most definitely not a threat.
Re:Sounds pretty mild (Score:3, Interesting)
The same thing happened when he visited Vienna (Austria), my home town. Vienna is one of the safest cities in the world, but that day we heard the sound of helicopters non-stop, and there was a general uneasiness in the air, probably caused by the many radio and TV announcements. The US Secret Service took over the city, the airport, etc, and the local police were told to aid them and follow their lead. Parts of our public transport system were cut off, people had to carry a permit to enter the inner city, and I couldn't even go visit my parents. To top it off, for a few hours the central area was totally off limits to practically everybody, because his wife wanted to go shopping. Very poor impression if you ask me.
Re:Uhm.. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:I've wondered about this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Dan East
Re:Should read... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hopefully, by which I mean "Never gonna happen, but," a good politician could do those things a better way. For example, one of the biggest problems with taxation is the sheer amount of money wasted on... collecting taxes. The way money is given to areas based on size and not need... if these issues could be addressed, millions upon millions upon millions could be saved and turned into revenue without raising taxes a dime.
It's a poor example, but I think my point stands.
Re:Should read... (Score:5, Interesting)
There are at least two legitimate concerns:
1) Various fairly obvious terrorist responses to these counter-measures will greatly increase the danger to bystanders without materially reducing the risk to the President.
2) There is some suspicion that this has more to do with making it harder for legitimate democratic protesters to co-ordinate their actions than it does with preventing terrorism.
Whether either of those things is sufficient to trump the needs of presidential security is a matter for debate, unlike the nearly-zero-cost behaviour of locking your car doors to protect your stereo. There is a point where people are going to say, "Enough! We've had it with all the intrusions into our daily lives in the name of counter-terrorist activity. I come from a society that has always valued liberty over security, and this is more than I am willing to give up."
While the particular policy of jamming cell phones is relatively minor, it is symbolic of many other more significant intrusions. [pbs.org]
Re:Should read... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know if I had any bars or not. All I know is that when I punched in the number and hit the button to dial, I got nothing. For the sake of my friend down below, I'll make it clearer:
I couldn't make a cell phone call. I don't know why. I don't know if the signal was jammed or the amps were shut off or if T-Mobile just has lousy signal service in that stadium. I couldn't make a call.
Frankly, the reason why I couldn't make a call never really occurred to me until I saw the original story entry, which reminded me of the event. Jeez, it was well over two years ago.
What's interesting (and unrelated to Mr. Bush) is that a fellow season-ticket holder once told me he couldn't make a call on his cell during football games at this facility. The odd thing was that his cell provider was Alltel, which had its name on the stadium (until now, anyway...their naming deal with the Jaguars is over). He claimed it was done intentionally, but he never could explain why.
Maybe the NFL didn't want Alltel customers using their cell phones to blow up the visitor's bench or something.
Re:Should read... (Score:3, Interesting)
And missionaries. Oh, and capitalists who sailed halfway around the world to make a fortune exploiting your country's natives, taking its natural resources, and killing off your local species one by one.
You know, you Aussies and us Americans have a lot of history in common