Republican National Convention Preparations 6

25 August 2004

Previous red-team reports of convention preparations:

http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-01.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-02.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-03.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-04.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc05/rnc-prep-05.htm

A European TV crew yesterday taped several locations near Madison Square Garden previously reported by Cryptome. Most of the locations are now guarded by security personnel, primarily uniformed and plain-clothed New York City police:

1. Amtrak's sunken track at West 36th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue (below). Police vehicle. Taped.

2. Javits Convention Center at West 34th-37th Streets and 11th-12th Avenues. Many police officers and vehicles. No tape.

3. Gate to truck parking area adjacent to Amtrak tracks at West 33rd-34th Streets and 11th-12th Avenues. Police vehicle. No tape.

4. Long Island Railroad yards at 12th Avenue between West 32nd and West 33rd Streets (below). Taped. Taping halted by NY police officers.

5. Long Island Railroad sunken tracks and tunnel at West 30th-31st Street and 9th Avenue leading to Penn Station under Madison Square Garden. Police officers on tracks at tunnel entrance. Taped.

6. No additional protective measures were seen at the temporary communications cable rack and stair at the north side of Madison Square Garden rising from West 33rd Street sidewalk bridge to the roof. Taped. (There are likely to be police, including snipers, on the roof of Madison Square Garden.)

Except for halting the train yards-taping, there was no interruption of taping by the police and no questions asked by the police or anyone else.

That does not mean the taping crew and Cryptome were not taped in return.

Nor that the taping crew were not undercover security personnel, despite their necklaces sporting NYPD press badges.

Nor that Cryptome is trustworthy. Be sure to cloak your visits to this site.

In skulking around iconic sites of New York City recently, taking photographs and notes, occasionally with manned police vehicles on guard or driving by and walking patrol officers glancing indifferently our way, Cryptome has been not been accosted, questioned or stopped. In one case, an ATT private security guard in civvies, asked after we had photographed a switching station, why the pictures. We said we're an infrastructure buff. Oh, okay, he said. Then apologized, saying we have to be careful about terrorists surveilling places like this.

We have "surveilled" (we disparage that as "eye-balled") New York City bridges (one a major railroad with cops snoozing in a van under it and homeless living among its support beams), tunnels (one formerly home to dozens of homeless), natural gas facilities, train yards and tracks (more homeless), world-class architectural landmarks, police headquarters (homeless in jail), a federal prison (homeless in jail), courthouses (more homeless being processed for jail), homes of officials and war criminals, just about any place you could think of which might appeal to "bad guys."

Homeless set-up between two support beams of Metro-North railroad bridge with
beam supports in middle of 6-lane Harlem River Drive, left; uninhabited beams, center;
the lift-bridge across the Harlem River from Manhattan to The Bronx, right.
Photos by Cryptome, August 22, 2004

Not a single official has acted to stop the "terrorist surveillance." But then Cryptome is clean-dressed on skulk, hair white and short, mottled-pink-skinned, drippy-blue-eyed, and geezed in a floppy hat, like most government officials or their nutty, authoritarian dads.

This contrasts with the slew of arrests, harassments, indictments and imprisonments of people in the US and elsewhere who happen to look guilty, so the vigilante nuts swear, or whose names are allegedly on burgeoning "enemies lists." What can you do about millions named "Grandpa?"

Cryptome hosts most of the documents the British have claimed as computer-evidence of terrorist threat by the dozen or so Muslims arrested recently. Assume the Brits grabbed and planted the evidence from the Internet to discover and criminalize and boost investigative budgets courtesy of the vile Official Secrets Act.

The Patriot Act, like the Brit's Official Secrets Act, is a raid on the treasury by incompetents who are too stupid to know an unexpected threat until it bites them in their sleeping ass, but then so is security -- national, state, local and industry -- in the US and its allies driven by natsec professionals who promote fear and uncertainty for venal reasons.

Vidiot (http://www.telescreen.org) provides August 25, 2004:

RNC: Red-covered beam still sagging but patriotically draped in red, as you observed:

These pics taken yesterday, 8/24.

Feel free to publish this -- I'm making these pictures available under a Creative Commons license. For details of the license, go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ . (Further details are at that link, but essentially, I'm licensing this picture to whoever wants to use it, provided that they a.) attribute it to me (Vidiot), b.) not use it for any commercial purpose, c.) publish derivative works under an identical license.)