NYC now officially a police state

[KamaAina]

Alas for Mom, dear Dana :loveya: and even Republican Stepdad...

http://news.yahoo.com/bag-searches-checkpoints-ny-amid-threat-report-161914991.html

Police planned a show of force at Grand Central Terminal, Pennsylvania Station and the Times Square subway station because of a previously planned counterterror drill with rail agencies.

Authorities stopped vehicles at the 59th Street bridge, which connects Manhattan to Queens, causing a major backup. The Brooklyn Bridge was down to one lane, and checkpoints were up near Times Square and in other Midtown locations.

At Penn Station, transit police in helmets and bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles watched the crowds.

Officials were swabbing passengers' bags near an escalator to the train platforms, and police searched the bags of passengers at the entrance to a subway station. National Guard troops in camouflaged fatigues moved among the throng, eyeing packages.

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/kSTwguX9gIA8dTqDy6CPzA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD00MTA7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/

:scared:

[MadHound]

1. We have, predictably, overreacted to 911

This is spreading from New York, across the country to other large, and even small, cities. Another reason I'm glad I live in the country. I don't have to deal with that shit because of our size, insignificance, and the county's lack of money for such shit.

[krispos42]

5. Post 9/11 Huron, South Dakota.

It has a regional airport. Two puddle-jumpers a day, plus the usual general-aviation traffic.

A couple of days after 9/11, they stationed two police officers there with AR-15 rifles when the airliners were there. The local paper ran pictures.


The two cops had a bemused "why the fuck am I doing this? Really? Why am I here with a rifle?" look on their faces.

:banghead:

[GKirk]

17. Somebody can really

read alot into a look. Are you by chance Patrick Jane?

[krispos42]

37. Patrick Jane?

Nope. 2 more guesses...

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. psst..krispos....there's a leak in your DOW chart.....

all the white is falling out of the bottom of it.....

:evilgrin:

[FiveGoodMen]

2. Why America?

How could you be so stupid as to hand back to the bad guys (all authoritarians) everything that was one in the revolutionary war and defended by so many sacrifices since?

[FiveGoodMen]

32. 'won' of course

[arcane1]

3. If that's a "drill" what does the real thing look like??? n/t

[Javaman]

27. It would involve bigger guns, more false arrests and many busting of innocent heads. nt

[WinkyDink]

73. You would get very hurt for asking, IYKWIM.

[truebrit71]

4. Check points, bag checks, armed personnel on the streets

...is it fascism yet?

"We are removing your rights for your protection, dear citizen...."

[Blue_Tires]

6. The good ol' MP5?

I shudder to think how disasterous it would be if they ever had to FIRE the things

[Dawson Leery]

7. I could never wear the uniform.

I could never take orders blindly.

[hedgehog]

8. As near as I can make out - this is a specific response to

a report that several individuals plan to set off a car bomb in NYC this week-end. Given the circumstances, it doesn't seem like an overboard reaction.

[Bladian]

9. That's what I don't really understand about these posts.

How is trying to protect the public by positioning people who can respond to a possible situation a police state? It doesn't make any sense.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

11. Kinda a like opening a beer concession next to a NASCAR event

Go where the money is.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

13. Because it's nothing more than a "show of force."

And OBL is probably rolling in his watery grave with laughter.

"positioning people who can respond to a possible situation"? What is a cop with a fancy MP-5 machine gun going to do to stop a bomb?

Nat Guard troops in a train station? That's a joke. What are they going to do? They're weekend warriors - not counter assault professionals. I doubt they even have rounds in their weapons. After 9/11, Chicago O'Hare had them roaming around with un-loaded M-16s (source: my chicago cop friends). They also had an empty Humvee parked outside each terminal.

I have a customer who is a Chicago K-9 officer. She laughed when I asked her what the "plan" was for her and her dog. Basically just walk around to be "seen" by passengers.

They're not intimidating anyone but law abiding travelers.

[GKirk]

18. "They're not intimidating anyone but law abiding travelers."

I didn't find them intimadating, I found them reassuring.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

19. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the "hand job" factor.

[GKirk]

21. Well...

...I do appreciate a good hand job every now and then. :)

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

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[joeybee12]

28. Remember all those "specific response to a report" that Bush and his cronies issued

all of them bullshit, and the bullshit continues.

[hedgehog]

33. So, can you give us a list of bullshit reports issued by the Obama administration?

All the reports I've seen have been careful to state that this is coming from a credible but uncorroborated source. That doesn't sound like Terra! Terra! bullshit to me.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

10. Don't they carry automatic weapons in Europe?

And not just for particualr occassions but as day-to-day policy?

I could be wrong, having never traveled to Europe but I've been told they carry these weapons in airports and have for a long time.

[RZM]

15. I flew into DeGaulle about 12 years ago

And as I was leaving the airport I noticed about 5 beret-wearing military men toting submachine guns. I remember thinking, 'huh, you don't see that back home.'

I also remember that right after 9/11 it was often pointed out that Air France has always had armed air marshals on select flights to 'high risk areas.'

In both cases, my first reaction was not to think that France is a police state.

[hifiguy]

24. I saw exactly the same thing in DeGaulle in '03

and was frankly, not at all displeased to see them. My French-Canadian friend told the rest of us on the press/dealer jaunt that "they will shoot you dead in an instant" if they have good reason to. I had no reason to doubt him as they looked like serious bad-asses.

There were, however, no _visible_ security people in or around the TGV station in DeGaulle and certainly none in other TGV stations I saw in France. Nor were any to be seen in the Paris Metro.

The NYC thing is complete overkill, even accounting for NYC's special status.

Sensible people know that the likelihood of being killed by a terrorist is in the same range of probability as being killed by a falling meteorite.

[stockholmer]

41. here in Sweden, it is fairly rare to see armed police anywhere in the train stations, and even

rarer to see them driving around the residential neighborhoods. Moreover, they most assuredly do NOT carry military assault rifles in either circumstance.

They do respond quickly when called, but the 'show of force' meme is NOT an acceptable way of life for us here at all. Almost to a person, my friends find the thugs that make up such a unfortunately high percentage of your urban and suburban 'law enforcement officer' cadres reprehensible in demeanor and so so quickly capable of near-instant brutish violence.

[Quantess]

59. That's true.

Police cars are a scarce sighting. That was one of the first things I noticed...the absence of police presence.

[Chorophyll]

86. Yep, they do. I visited Italy in 2000. Armed guards in every airport.

Much scarier than the guys in this picture. And yet, it didn't feel like a police state.

[Dreamer Tatum]

12. This is a lot like what it would have looked like if the early warning signals of 9/11

would have been heeded.

Which you also would have complained about, no doubt.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hydra]

40. If this is what Bush would have done then

It still would have been wrong. The FBI knew where all the Hijackers were and they were forced to let them slide through.

All Bush had to do was let the FBI arrest them. No patrols, no guys with guns, no TSA groping.

The fact that you think this is the proper way to do things is depressing. Education in America about even the most basic issues seems to have disappeared.

[stockholmer]

42. have fun in the sheep pen

:thumbsdown:

[WinkyDink]

74. Whatever this blather is supposed to mean. Maybe BUSH should have "heeded"??

[Broderick]

14. This is coming to all of America

It's been building for years. These are our overlord's brownshirts. Get used to it.

[WinkyDink]

75. Gotta give the military some jobs when they come home.

[Dorian Gray]

20. I live in NYC

and I have no problem with this.

[sufrommich]

26. I doubt that most people who live within the threatened

areas do. It takes a real cowboy to denounce the "police state" in New York City when your city doesn't have a target drawn on it.

[stockholmer]

43. New York City has a target on it because the very same power projection these crypto-goons represent

are the essence and core of the US geo-political and financial-military world view, played out on a planetary scale. One of the most damning lies was the utter shite promulgated by politicians of all US stripes that 'we are hated because we are free'. The US is hated by many because it's political leadership goes in and either clandestinely or overtly kills millions of people of colour, sets up brutally repressive, murderously corrupt puppet regimes, and destroys other nations' social, physical, and economic infrastructures.

Never forget, throughout human history, whenever an empire falls (and fall they all do), some of the most devastating strokes from its dying talons are reserved for its own people.

[sufrommich]

45. New York city has a target on it because some death porn

terrorists looked for an area where they could kill as many innocent people as possible.

[stockholmer]

47. think deeper, why did these 'death-porners' pick the US? hint, its called blowback

This, is of course, if you believe the 'official' version (whatever the hell that is after thousands of revisions and ignorings of evidence)of the 9-11 tale. Which, for the purpose of this debate, I will assume you do.


A good place to start is the actual series of fatwahs issued by bin Laden himself. Not a peep in there about 'hating America because it is free and prosperous'.

Here is the main one, again, I assume you have read it, otherwise, you are quite incapable of having this discussion, for then you are simply not informed on the subject, and are instead relying on secondary, tertiary, and even more distant re-tellings of a primary source document:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html

The fatwa is entitled

"Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places."

[sufrommich]

50. I don't need to read bin ldens fatwas

I'm well aware they don't "hate us for our freedoms". Al Queda is a right wing religious theocratic group hiding behind "justice" for the Mddle East. You want to buy that shit, go right ahead.

Maybe this weekend isn't the best time for you to be blaming the residents of New York City for the sins of the world.

[stockholmer]

56. NOWHERE did I ever blame the residents of NYC, that's pure tripe and sophistry

You obviously not only refuse to read primary, germane source documents, but apparently you don't even bother to read what I type.

If you cannot differentiate between a government's actions and policies and the citizens themselves, then you are doing the EXACT same thing that you so stridently (and rightly, IMHO) condemn al-Qaeda for.

[Dorian Gray]

68. I think he was able to differentiate between a government's actions

and the citizenry. I also think that there is no excuse for attacking the towers or using airplanes to do it, no matter what NYC represents to anybody.

And having a police presence on subways, in Times Square, at the Trade Center site this week is not a problem for the majority of people who live here. There has been a threat against the city. It's what the police have to do, and it's ridiculous to descry it.

[Name removed]

76. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mimosa]

48. Eloquent summation, Stockholmer.

Your analysis is spot on, as usual.

[Chorophyll]

87. +1.

[MissDeeds]

38. Good point

I hope everything goes well for you and your fellow New Yorkers in the coming days.

:grouphug:

[Exilednight]

53. I, too, live in the city. And I have a real problem with this. n/t

[classof56]

22. Police state? Seriously? There's been a report about the possible danger

of an attack. Is it unAmerican of me to think better safe than sorry? As someone pointed out, if these precautions had been in place prior to 9/11/01, things might have turned out very differently.

These are just my opinions. Another one--that's a good-looking dog!

Tired Old Cynic

[Exilednight]

54. It would be fine if this was a once in a high terror alert situation, but this is an everyday

occurrence.

[HockeyMom]

23. 5 years after 9/11

I saw National Guard troops patrolling the LIRR station in Ronkonkoma. If you know the area, you will know how far away from Ground Zero that is. Maybe they were searching for the Princess??????

[sarcasmo]

25. Has been since 9/11.

[KamaAina]

29. I've been there several times since Nineleven(TM)

as noted above, I have family and friends there. And I have yet to encounter anything remotely like what the article describes.

[Warren DeMontague]

30. The dog is there to make sure no terrorist jamband fans get on the train with weed in their pockets.

SAFETY!!! :woohoo:

[Broderick]

34. Right on!

Bingo. The security infrastructure to "help" and "protect" us is being designed and implemented under the guise of fear to protect the overlords down the road, the overlords that are .1 percent of the population. I include the TSA in this, that does exercises in the West on population uprising control. We have the gestapo being built and we shake in our boots on faux terror as they assemble a new American Society in the near future. Get used to it. It's coming to a town, city, plane, train and bus near you. They got away with using it to do illegal wars, so why not stamp down on society on general. Pretty soon our vouchers will be for "vodka".

[bettyellen]

55. ridiculous! they are bomb sniffers, not trained for drug sniffing at all.

[Zen Democrat]

35. I'm glad this is happening because there's a credible threat concerning those places.

Grand Central, Penn Station, and Times Square.

[brooklynite]

39. Over-reaching headline...

The police (with or without body armor) have been in GCT since 2001, and intermittent subway station check have occurred for about as long. Nobody is being asked to "show papers", nobody is being blocked from movement through the station or, for that matter, most of the city.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

44. Like my husband always says....

...They hate us for our freedoms, so we're going to take away those freedoms and then maybe they'll stop hating us?! :shrug:

[jumptheshadow]

46. I commute through that station twice a day...

and I appreciate the people who put their lives at risk to protect us.

New York is not a police state, by the way. It's the home of one of the most diverse populations on earth, most of them mingling with each other daily. It also has burgeoning music, arts and environmental movements, a huge number of academics and intellectuals, and lots of free and reasonably priced parks and arts events.

[KamaAina]

52. That's precisely why it hurts me so much to see it on virtual lockdown

How long before you get searched at all those wonderful free and reasonably priced parks and arts events I remember so well? :scared:

[originalpckelly]

49. And whose packages were they eyeing? See, this is DADT repeal at work.

:P

[bluestateguy]

51. A good many large cities have annoying Nanny State rules

I do have San Francisco voters reject the circumcision ban.

[spanone]

57. the bad guys won

ten years on we're still terrorized.

[GoneOffShore]

58. fear, Fear, FEAR! terror, Terror, TERROR!

bullshit, Bullshit, BULLSHIT!

[ProgressoDem]

60. Glad I don't have an irrational, paranoid overreaction to the authorities.

Security is dangerous! The police are the criminals! I swear, I really think the anti-government lefties (I'm not even going to say liberals) are just as bad as the anti-government teabaggers. And are at least twice as Orwellian.

[Shandris]

61. I'm happy you can be so naively DENSE.

Some of us, however, are not. Attempting to belittle us for that only shows your naivety.

Not every policeman is a criminal, or would be if they could. Not even a majority. But there are ENOUGH of them that are, and would. Being aware of that is NOT lunacy, it's self-preservation. I respect the job they do...but I would prefer for them to do it as far from me as humanly possible, because with MY experiences, I wouldn't trust one farther than I could bowl him. On sand.

[ProgressoDem]

66. Your experiences should not dictate the amount of police presence in New York.

Especially on the anniversary of 9/11, when the danger of another terrorist attack is more than usual. Some police are corrupt. Yes. I'll give you that. Here's some news though - that's not unique to police. The consequences of sitting back this weekend with no security because we're worried about some corrupt cops could be disastrous. It's honestly astounding. I'm glad that when trying to scare off a lone wolf sort of terrorist, they have no concern for whether a handful of people might be uncomfortable. I'd rather them take the precautions to prevent mass death on the anniversary of 9/11, than take precautions to not upset a few people.

[stockholmer]

62. your tattered 'logic' is the only 'Orwellian' thought I see emanating from your brief post

When the government fears the people, liberty is thusly secured, but when the people fear the government, tyranny holds the whip-hand.


"They who will give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety, and will, most assuredly, soon lose both."

- Benjamin Franklin


"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

- George Orwell

[ProgressoDem]

65. The standard pithy Franklin quote.

Mmmm, at least there's a second one that has no relevancy to the NYPD. Who is fearing the government, by the way? What does an increased police presence in New York on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in all history have to do with - oh noes! - a police state? Give me a break.

[stockholmer]

67. here are 2 'pithy' statements for you

1. Your civil rights on a multivariate number of matrices have been systematically eroded and stripped from you since 9-11.

2. The police state is not ab origine designed to protect the USA citizens from terrorists, it uses the perceived 'terrorist' threat that it (by its very actions and nature) self-generates to protect the systemic controllers FROM the citizens.


Fear inducement/police state in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riboisae0JY&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk-BX4rqK8U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etv8YEqaWgA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czoww2l1xdw&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R17RMd7_ob4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC0h1cGy0Bc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSQTz1bccL4




ergo, face...................meet boot


And if you or anyone doesn't like it in the US, they have plenty of these little toys scattered about to ensure your compliance.


Willowbrook, Illinois

[ProgressoDem]

71. Horrendous incidents.

Police state? I don't think so.

[Dorian Gray]

69. Nobody in NYC

is giving up their friggin liberty. Geez.

If an attack DID happen today and there was no preparation or police presence, the same people would be hollering to the rooftops about it.

Give me a break. I take the subway every day. I have not seen anybody prevented from going anywhere. Nobody needs "papers." This thread is seriously a bunch of handwringing bullshit, and it pisses me off.

[stockholmer]

72. I wasn't specifically singling out NYC on 9-11, the simple fact is that the US HAS surrendered so

much of its civil liberties in just the last 10 years that it takes my breath away. As for 'papers', none of you can go ANYWHERE outside of the USA without a passport which as of 2 years ago now includes complete bio-metric data. In addition, there are well over http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/07/terrorist-watch.html">1 million people on the DHS no fly list or terrorist watch lists, and that was 3 years ago, the number now is substantially higher.

Be it the Patriot Act, TSA microwave oven scanners and genital grabs/strip searches, FDA raids on the Amish and other natural food producers (not to mention farmers who have had their fields purposely contaminated with Monsanto's GMO seeds of death, then raided and sued), the wide-spread tasering, beating, tear-gassing, stripping, and yes, even killing by so-called law enforcement officers of thousands of innocent people, the importing of alarming numbers into the same-said police ranks of 'just-out-of-battle-theatres' ex-military recruits (many times with almost no break between kicking in doors in Iraq/Afghanistan and kicking in doors in Anytown, USA), the all-pervasive collection of data online (available to ANY so-called officially authorized government department for the appropriate fee), the rise of the for-profit private police system (the USA has more people in prison or jail than all the rest of the 25 biggest nations on earth), the geo-tracking via GPS, the paranoia-driving big screen telly's with the horrendous DHS goonette Janet Napolitano urging Walmart drones to "See Something, Say Something", or the general, relentless, systematic unceasing attempts to break the will of the populace to resist any governmental authority, the bottom line is that a police state is being erected right in your face.

Hand-wringing? I damn well think not. :puke:

[Dorian Gray]

83. I agree

about the Patriot Act and the TSA. I disagree that NYC police went overboard with their presence in the city this weekend. That's what angered me about THIS thread.

[WinkyDink]

77. Now who's being naive, Kay?

[Skip Intro]

63. Glad to see this thread with few recs. I continue to thank those who willingly put their lives in

danger each day to serve and protect. They do a thankless job you couldn't pay me enough to do. This view has garnered me some nasty replies in the past here, and I've no doubt it will in the future. So be it.

In this particular instance, though, there has been talk for days of credible threats to NY and DC. There are threads in this forum as I type that slam bush for having had a heads up before 9*11, but taking no action based on that intel. Here we have precautions being taken.

DU never fails to confound me with the over the top hatred of the men and women of law enforcement. But I am glad to see this thread with such few recs. I'm only sorry I wasn't here in time to unrec it myself.

[krispos42]

84. The well-armored gentlemen with the submachines gun are not working the credible threat

They're there to... well, heck if I know.

Action based on intel is, of course, highly dependent on the situation. But it seems to me that we should have intelligence and counter-terrorism agents working the leads and following the evidence, not armored and uniformed SWAT members with K-9s standing 8-hour shifts inside of a train station.

:shrug:

It's a show. Depending on your point of view, it's either intimidating or comforting. But absent a specific person or thing to look for, I'm leaning towards the former.

And given a specific person or thing to look for, I think I would prefer plainclothes officers slipping through the station, virtually unnoticed by the crowds, than the in-your-face SWAT guys standing there like big fat targets.


The SWAT guys will do absolutely zero against, say, a truck bomb or hijacked airliner-turned-flying-bomb or poison-gas attack or whatever. They'll do some good if news breaks and they get a specific person to hunt for, or respond to a mass-shooting event, but that's about it. And again... it would probably be better if they were in plain clothes.


I don't deny that the regular-duty beat officers are laudable people doing a tough job for mediocre pay. But the special-duties stuff like this...


Frankly, the tautly-wired NYPD response could be likely be used against them by a reasonably clever terrorist. A distraction here, a distraction there, NYPD rushing all over the place... keep that up for a few days and we would see how effective the police were by then.

[NYC Liberal]

64. I don't think you know what a "police state" is. nt

[Dorian Gray]

70. Seriously,

This thread is made of stupid trying to disguise itself as smart.

[WinkyDink]

79. No; this thread is filled with "we have GOOD cops, not like those former East Germans!" naivete....

and craven compliance.

[WinkyDink]

78. Really? Were you stopped on a corner in NYC in 2003, told to walk blocks around to finally go

straight ahead? Were you put behind barricades near Port Authority when all you wanted to do was catch your bus?

[NYC Liberal]

80. A detour = police state?

You've got to be kidding me.

[WildEyedLiberal]

81. Barricades = STASI!!!!!

This place is fucking ridiculous.

[Dorian Gray]

82. Gasp!

The HORROR!

[Chorophyll]

85. As someone who frequently passes through Grand Central Station,

I can tell you that security gets stepped up there and throughout the MTA around certain significant dates, or if (like over the past few days) there's been a "credible but not corroborated" threat. New York City is not a freakin' police state. You see what you want to see. Jeezus.