The inconvenient security that wasn't

[Xose]

I thought I would share with you my experience with Secret Service security procedures this morning, as I found them to be troubling on several levels. When I arrived to work, the entrance to my building (on 17th and L Sts. NW) was behind a police line. Even though my building's main entrance was a mere 50 feet away, the DC Police officer told me that he could not escort me to my building due to Secret Service orders. Apparently, Dick Cheney was in the Mayflower hotel next door and the block had been secured.

While this was a major inconvenience, it was not the disturbing part of the story. What's disturbing is that to enter my supposedly secured building, all I had to do was walk through the bar/restaurant in the basement (their entrance is on L St.) to the elevator, and then off I went into the building.

How can the Secret Service consider a building secure from terrorists when they don't even bother to find and secure all entrances to the building? This is just yet another example of the bogus "security" we purport to have in this country. As with the asinine procedures at the airport, this was simply an empty show of force with no real efficacy. If a lowly office worker can slip into a secured building unnoticed, how hard would it be for someone determined to cause real harm?

Xose

[Art]

Yep.

I totally agree that our airport security is silly and pays attention to minor details while leaving major things untouched. What amazes me is that most Americans seem comforted by the "show" and aren't irritated by the abuses.

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Claro que sí.

Estoy de acuerdo completamente que nuestra seguridad de los aeropuertos es una tontería y presta atención a detalles menores mientras no hace caso de cosas mayores. Lo que me sorpresa más es que parece que hace a los norteamericanos reconfortados por la "muestra" y que no están molestado por los abusos.