Anti terrorism measures

[stui magpie]

Being back working in the city again, seeing all the concrete bollards around the place, then going to the ANZAC day game yesterday after the Sri Lankan terrorist act and things I observed made me think about how anti terrorism measures have been put in place but, apart from the intelligence community, our general blase nature makes most of them ineffective.

Lots of bollards everywhere, yet opportunities abound

Metal detectors to enter the game that don't work or aren't used correctly. In the queue I was in to enter the ground initially, the line was moving slowly as one guy was taking it seriously. Dark skinned guy dressed in black, unlike the rent a cops in yellow was pinging people and making them empty pockets. A cop standing nearby offered some advice, saying if you wanted to get through quickly, take your wallets, keys and phones out of your pockets as this bloke was the only one he'd ever seen here using the wand properly. So, checking my pockets, realising I had coins in the fob pocket and a large metal belt buckle and that I didn't feel like getting undressed, I changed lanes and went through the rent a cop aisle where none of the metal objects on me registered.

If everyone did their job properly like that one bloke, lines would move a lot slower but only until people got used to the drill, then they would speed up. Like getting on a plane in the USA . So, in essence, the metal detectors and bag searches seem designed more to make people feel secure rather than actually stop potential terrorists.

There was also a lot more cops at the game than I'm used to, and armed PSA's at every station on the platform heading north until we got clear of the inner suburbs. None of them seemed focused or on alert, just clocking up some overtime.

Having a guy come around this morning to put a new head unit in the ute, made me think how relatively simple it could be to cause large scale terror using a bit of tech.

The guy's name was Yusuf, which made me think he was likely Muslim which triggered the thought process but it could be applied easily to any terrorist group. The company that does the installations of electronic car accessories for several larger retailers clearly uses sub contractors to do the work. The bloke who did mine was excellent by the way, great job. But lets just say someone had an agenda.

Get a few blokes similar to him who do installs to get registered with the company. While doing the install you also fit a small device which is hidden inside the dash which contains say 500g of C4, a remote detonator and a gps tracking chip all connected to the cars electrics. 2 or 3 blokes doing 3 or 4 cars a week quickly has a hundred or more cars which are now bombs driving around. One person with a laptop or tablet could monitor their locations and decide on the opportune time to detonate one or several. It would take the cops a while to link them back by which time the installers have shot through.

If there's a point to this, It's that the threat of terrorism hasn't really changed our lives much. If someone really wants to cause carnage, it's the intelligence community we rely on not the visible things that give us a sense of security. If Sri Lanka's government wasn't so internally dysfunctional the bombings may have been prevented