[t]housands of local, state and federal officers are helping turn the city into a veritable fortress.Last week, the Boston Globe reported that
[a]n unprecedented number of video cameras will be trained on Boston during the Democratic National Convention, with Boston police installing some 30 cameras near the FleetCenter, the Coast Guard using infrared devices and night-vision cameras in the harbor, and dozens of pieces of surveillance equipment mounted on downtown buildings to monitor crowds for terrorists, unruly demonstrators, and ordinary street crime.Big Brother is here and you are being watched.
For the first time, 75 high-tech video cameras operated by the federal government will be linked into a surveillance network.... Their feeds from cameras mounted on various downtown buildings will be piped to monitoring stations in the Boston area and in Washington, D.C., and officials will be able to zoom in from their work stations to gather details of facial descriptions or read license plates. ...
An unspecified number of State Police cameras are also being installed, and more than 100 previously existing MBTA cameras will be used to monitor area subway and bus stations. Law enforcement officials will have as-needed access to as many as 900 cameras that have been operated for months or years by the Massachusetts Port Authority, the state Highway Department, and the Big Dig. ...
The Boston Police Department has a new policy permitting police to videotape political demonstrations during the convention, and federal officials also are planning to use hand-held cameras to videotape clashes between protesters and police.
(Sidebar: The Globe also notes that such video surveillance is "here to stay: Boston police say the 30 or so cameras installed for the convention will be used throughout the city once the event is over.
'We own them now,' said police Superintendent Robert Dunford. 'We're certainly not going to put them in a closet.'")
Happily, some media attention is being drawn by protest organizers in the city to the absurd conditions under which speech - I can't bring myself to refer to it as "free" speech - will be "allowed." (Funny, I was brought up thinking it was a right, not something to be "allowed." How silly people were before "9/11 changed everything!") For example, CNN reported on Sunday that
[p]rotesters at the Democratic National Convention say their designated area outside the FleetCenter infringes on their safety and free speech rights.AP went further, with a more complete description.
At a news conference Saturday, protesters also complained that the fenced-in area is out of sight to most delegates and passers-by en route to the arena. ...
"We are very alarmed that our First Amendment rights have been undermined to the degree that the city of Boston now thinks the rights of free expression, the right to rally and protest means you get out into an area like this," said Leslie Cagan, co-founder of United for Peace and Justice, who likened the protest area to an internment camp.
The area, with a small stage, is surrounded on three sides by a wire fence with razor wire on top.
As thousands of delegates, journalists and dignitaries stream into the FleetCenter, protesters for the next few days will be enclosed in a shadowy, closed-off piece of urban streetscape just over a block away.The question is, whether this attention will do any good or not. I happen to know the area being described. It is indeed dark and out of the way, inconvenient even if not fenced in. Any protest there will be essentially invisible as well as - and I do not believe this is by coincidence - uninviting to the media, particularly TV because of difficult lighting conditions. (By the way, the purpose of the overhead netting is to protect pedestrians from pieces of concrete that may fall from the roadway above - but the main thing it fills up with is bird shit.)
The maze of overhead netting, chain link fencing and razor wire....
Abandoned, elevated rail lines and green girders loom over most of the official demonstration zone that slopes down to a subway station closed for the duration. To avoid hitting girders, tall protesters will have to duck at one end of the 28,000-square-foot zone. Train tracks obscure the line of sight to much of the FleetCenter. Concrete blocks were set around streets in the area....
And if the poor conditions aren't enough, there's always the fear factor.
Authorities fear that some protesters are preparing to target the media.It's all part of a plan to limit speech, to curtail protest. This isn't about maintaining security, it's about disappearing dissent. Think I'm joking or being paranoid? Consider that it was the city that insisted on the dark, out-of-the-way protest site behind razor wire-topped fences and under girders, a place a US District court judge called "an affront to free expression" and a "festering boil" before - get this - refusing to order changes. And now,
The FBI said Friday that it had "unconfirmed information" that a domestic group plans to attack media vehicles, possibly with "explosives or incendiary devices," according to a statement issued by the FBI's Boston field office.
[a]uthorities said they were lowering the maximum number of protesters to 1,000, from a previous 4,000, because of concerns of overcrowding.That is, having enforced a lousy location and having done their best to limit media coverage, they want to limit the size of protests as well.
Still not convinced? This is also from AP for Sunday:
About 2,000 protesters gathered at noon on the historic Boston Common, site of many of the city's most memorable demonstrations. After about two hours there, they marched about half a mile to the Fleet Center, where Democrats plan to nominate hometown candidate John Kerry for president on Wednesday.First note that the antiwar march was one for which city officials originally refused to give a permit, claiming they were concerned about public safety. It took a federal judge to force them to change their decision.
Several blocks away, about 1,000 anti-abortion advocates gathered at Faneuil Hall, the historic meeting house where patriots gathered before the American Revolution, and set off on their own march to the FleetCenter.
The two groups crossed paths at an intersection, where demonstrators exchanged angry words with one another. Some of the anti-abortion marchers laid down in the street. They soon stood up at the request of the police and the two marches continued their separate ways following a few minutes of confusion.
About 30 state police officers wearing riot gear lined Beacon Street for the larger march, in which the throng paraded behind a banner reading "Bring the troops home now."
A half dozen cruisers and 18 police vans followed slowly along the parade route.
So despite all the "concern," despite all the surveillance, despite all the negotiations, despite 30 cops in riot gear, a half-dozen cruisers, and 18 vans, they still allowed two marches with sharply differing agendas to "cross paths at an intersection?"
What the hell kind of nonsense is that? What, are we supposed to believe this was an accident, a surprise, a coincidence? That no planning by police took this into account? That despite the show of force, no effort either was or could have been undertaken to divert one march to a slightly different route or hold it back for a few minutes until the other had gone by? Are we supposed to think police did not deliberately let this happen?
Well, I for one do not buy that for one single instant. I say - and it will take a great deal to convince me otherwise - that the police did allow this to happen, did it knowingly, in anticipation of a confrontation that could be used to revoke other permits and lock the city down against protest altogether. To the credit (and benefit) of both marches, it appears nothing beyond angry words were exchanged.
Much, I suspect, to the frustration of the Boston PD.
Updated to note that playing up the supposed threat of an attack on the media is already having an effect, as the Miami Herald (registration required) described on Monday.
Television stations have enhanced security around broadcast vans and distributed bulletproof vests to some employees. Members of Knight Ridder's coverage team, which serves The Herald and dozens of other newspapers, were urged by managers to attend "hostile environment" training similar to that given to staffers bound for Baghdad.That is, the media are already playing it cautious - which will likely have an effect on their willingness to cover demonstrations.
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