boston exposes the lie that america is more safe

yeah, good point.

Re: boston exposes the lie that america is more safe

What?!

Extra precautions need to be taken for such a huge event, regardless.

Nonsense, Smog! They stuff that same building to the rafters everytime the Celtics or the Bruins are in contention, but they don't shut down I-93 on game day.

The implication of the first post seems to be that America is less safe because of president Bush's actions. This may well be true, but it is illogical to thereby conclude that Bush's actions were incorrect.

The president is trying to insure that the country is more safe in the long run, not at every second after his actions commence. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and the US declared war and began to arm, the US action may have resulted in Japan stepping up its activities to make war on America, or one of the other Axis powers doing so. In that case, the US would have been less safe in the short term, but yet had acted correctly, since Japan had shown that it posed a danger. Whether this example is a good one or not, my point is that beginning to oppose an enemy who must be opposed may initially increase the danger, but the action must nonetheless be undertaken to eventually defeat the enemy.

We have a variety of groups arrayed against us in the Middle East. They didn't like us before, and intended us terrible harm, as 9/11 demonstrated. Some of them object to our culture as a whole and wish to obliterate it. It is appropriate for us to fight them so that they do not succeed in destroying us, but in the early stages of the battle, once we begin to act decisively against them, it is entirely possible that we might initially be in more danger. Nonetheless, the mere fact that people who don't like us initially, or are up to various types of mischief, like us less when we begin to act against them, does not mean that acting against them is not the right course of action.

The precautions are very similar to those enacted in Seattle for the WTO meeting in 1999, under Clinton's watch and pre-9/11. It doesn't wash.

Earl Grey,

They closed roads around the site of the Democratic Convention. I should tell you that the main access road to the city of Boston parallels the site of the convention and that rail access literally shares the same building.

Patio Dog,
While I never lived in or near a city in which a major political convention was held, I do not remember any discussion of security measures of this magnitude before. Also, once attended a state convention in Michigan and there were no security measures and that was after 1968 in Chicago.

I dunno about 1968 in Chicago, but I was in Seattle in 1999, and the first thing that came to mind when i read the description of the Boston security measures was how similar they were to those then. I don't like the strictures in Boston, nor do I believe the world is safer now than it was four years ago, but I don't necessarily think there is a direct correlation between the two. It may be called "code orange" now (or whatever), but there have been similarly authoritarian shows of force against protestors in recent memory.

Hopefully, of course, this one doesn't disintegrate to the point where inexperienced police officers in riot gear are tossing tear gas into car doors...

Cripes, they didn't even put trash cans inside the Fleet Center, lest someone deposit a bomb in one.
It's ridiculous.

"Better safe than sorry" is paranoia! Aren't people searched on the way in? Everyone is forced to throw their trash on the floor. Stupid.

Isn't there strike going on?

Nope!

Boston has gone through the looking-glass.

Well, assuming that no one tries to attack the convention, then it's stupid. But if some group actually does plan to do so, then it is possible that they might be resourceful and could defeat spotty security. People who are willing to die in order to kill are very dangerous.

<shrugs> London Underground hasnt had trash cans for years now ... same reason. IRA and all that.

So the puddles of urine were placed there by terrorists... for me to slip in?

There were machine guns at Schiphol in 1975.
In September 2002, I took a flight out of Logan with a knife in my purse - after I was searched three times. A week earlier, security at Pearson in Toronto removed a hairclip from my bag.

I'm amazed that they're getting a clue in the U.S. to take security seriously.

"all that" = humans alter habits to meet environments = (nearly) no-one of the three million passengers/day smashes paper, litter etc in the tube/stations.

The same is practised here in Germany, where you don't find wastebaskets at many autobahn parking sites anymore.

With the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and world events the world has become much more dangerous. A little inconvenience if it results in making attendance to the event more secure is a small price to pay. The people who complain of inconvenience would be the first ones to demand an explanation if anything happened.