[Scan-DC] MIAMIM HERALD ARTICLE

[johnson at cpcug.org]

All -

This article appeared in the Miami Herald today.  All those people running
around with radios will make a field day for scanning.

Unfortunately, I have to work.

Good article in today's Post business section about the digital transition
on Feb 17th.

Ralph Johnson

The Miami Herald

January 14, 2009 Wednesday

A 'SHIELD' TO SURROUND INAUGURAL; THOUSANDS OF OFFICERS AND LAYERS OF
HIGH-TECH EQUIPMENT WILL BE ON HAND TO PROTECT BARACK OBAMA ON TUESDAY AS
HE TAKES THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENCY.

BYLINE: GREG GORDON, ggordon at mcclatchydc.com

Barack Obama will be sworn in under the tightest security ever, shielded
by a new, heavily armored Cadillac limousine, bullet-resistant glass,
fighter planes overhead and Secret Service SWAT teams toting automatic
weapons.
The level of protection is no surprise, given that the throng stretching
two miles from the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial
is expected to be around two million -- with some estimates as high as
four million, quadruple the usual turnout -- and that Obama already has
been the target of numerous threats.

Days before he was elected the nation's 44th president, federal agents
broke up an alleged plot by two neo-Nazi skinheads to kill him. Then, on
Tuesday, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader issued a tape blaming Obama for Israel's
recent attacks on the militant Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

U.S. counterterrorism officials -- boasting a daunting array of high-tech
defenses, some of them developed since Sept. 11 -- say they've received no
intelligence identifying a specific, credible threat that someone will
attack during the inauguration.

Still, the event poses a massive challenge for the Secret Service and some
10,000 officers from more than 100 federal, state and local law
enforcement agencies, ''in part because of the large numbers of people
converging on the nation's capital,'' retired Secret Service agent Robert
Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez, a former SWAT team leader who guarded four presidents over 22
years before he retired in 2004, said he also thought that the risk of
harm to the nation's first black president ``is greater, because,
unfortunately, I believe there is still active prejudice in our nation.''

PROTECTION

He said the Secret Service began protecting Obama in the fall of 2007 --
the earliest ever for a presidential candidate -- because, he assumed, of
``the intelligence and the threat level.''

Jack Tomarchio, who recently retired as the homeland security deputy
undersecretary for intelligence and analysis operations, said that a black
president could incite ``a whole new cast of weirdos, like white
supremacists or other people that might have a grudge against him purely
because of his ethnic background.''

The Secret Service, which has mushroomed from 325 agents in 1981 to some
3,500 today, has demonstrated time and again its ability to safeguard
presidents, vice presidents and other dignitaries at inaugural events. No
would-be assassin has harmed a president since 1981, when drifter John W.
Hinckley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan in the chest outside a Washington hotel.

The biggest risk might surround those massing on the National Mall, where
no inaugural tickets are required and spectators can watch and hear Obama
swearing-in and inaugural address on huge video screens.

Law enforcement officials have said that everyone will be checked on
entering the mall, though they have yet to say to what extent.

`GOD ONLY KNOWS'

''How do you search all of these people?'' asked one retired Secret
Service agent, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the
sensitive nature of security work. ``If a suicide bomber or two or three
got loose in that crowd, God only knows what would happen. It would be
disastrous.''

The former agent said that even a smoke bomb could cause spectators to try
to flee in panic, heightening risks that people could be trampled.

Since the inauguration has been designated a ''National Special Security
Event,'' the Secret Service is responsible not only for the safety of
Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, but also ''for protecting
everybody in attendance,'' agency spokesman Malcolm Wiley said.

Wiley said his agency had seen nothing to suggest that the crowd would
reach four million, but ``we will be prepared to deal with that.''

Security preparations have been under way for months, with law enforcement
agencies drawing plans for protecting the airspace over the city, the
Capitol grounds, the mall and the parade route along Pennsylvania Avenue
Northwest. The Secret Service and local transportation officials have
announced that more than 60 streets, highways and bridges to Virginia will
be closed or limited to official vehicles on Inauguration Day.

''The [nation's] borders will be probably at a heightened state of
scrutiny'' in the days leading up to the event, said Tomarchio, the
retired homeland security official. ``Certainly, everybody's going to be
paying a little extra-special attention to the terrorist watch list, to
high-interest individuals that may attempt to transit our borders during
this time.''

One reason, he said, is that Pakistani terrorists' Thanksgiving weekend
attacks in Mumbai, India, which killed 173 people at 10 sites, showed
other potential terrorists how much damage 10 heavily armed men could
inflict.

BEHIND THE GLASS

Obama will wear bullet-resistant clothing, speak behind a protective glass
shield and ride in the parade in the armored Cadillac limousine, with
doors and windows so thick that he probably would survive a bomb blast,
law enforcement officials said.

Trailing his car will be black vans loaded with Special Weapons and
Tactics and counter-assault teams, high-speed communications equipment and
electronic devices capable of jamming the detonators for homemade bombs.

Nondescript boxes that can detect the airborne releases of chemical or
biological weapons such as lethal anthrax spores will be scattered among
the crowds.

Wiley said that Secret Service agents had surveyed every building along
the cordoned-off parade route, which like the Capitol grounds will be
limited to ticket holders. Snipers will be positioned on rooftops and
balconies along Pennsylvania Avenue, their eyes joining surveillance
cameras in scanning to ensure that every window is closed and no one
threatens the new president.

Under such security, Rodriguez said, ``adversaries may look for a more
opportune time to harm the president.''