Very bad news if true

[nancylebov]

http://www.star-telegram.com/dallas_news/story/486413.html

Dallas police say the secret service told them to stop checking for weapons at Obama rally this past Wednesday.

This is extremely ugly if it's accurate, so I want to check on it. The claim that the secret service told the police to stop checking is hard to verify, so I want to start with something easier. Was anyone on my friendslist or anyone they know at the rally? Were they checked for weapons?

If this is true, what then? What's a reasonable way of applying pressure so that the Feds at least can't be so blatant?

I wish I could say that I believe my government wouldn't behave like that, but I'm not that trusting.

It wouldn't even have to be racism-- it could just be going after the Democratic candidate who's more likely to win the general election.

Is there any way to track whether white hate groups are being monitored at least as actively as usual?

Link from supergee.

Comments

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Um, we didn't get tightly checked going to a rally for Clinton a few weeks ago. And my mother was in a wheel chair and we had several bags hanging off it. There were dogs running around sniffing at everything.
The Secret Service seem to be spending more time actually watching carefully and putting themselves between the candidate and any problems. Which when you are talking about Large Rallies is actually the only way to handle things.
All the major assassinations that we think about have happened either completely out in the open (JFK, King, Bhutto) or in areas were weapons checks were usually not performed (Robert Kennedy). Not inside the Rally Room itself.
Do you have any idea how long it would take to do a Real Weapons Check on 20K+ of people? Just think of the fun you have checking into an airport.
Frankly, I'm more worried about the crackpot across the street from the Rally Building Parking Lot.

[crystalpyramid]

My boyfriend says they did a Real Security Check for the Obama rally in Maryland — ~18,000 people got the full treatment with wands and metal detectors. They had to start early, but people had to come early just to get in.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

The wheelchair may have been the cause of that. So far, the ingrained "be polite to disabled people" meme consistently overpowers the "be paranoid" meme.

My (now) wife and I had to go to City Hall to get paperwork for our marriage in late September, 2001, in Boston, the city that the hijackers departed from. Paranoia was high. There were long lines to get through the metal detectors, and everyone was being carefully searched. They took one look at my wife's white cane, and immediately ushered her and her large backpack around the metal detector with no search.

Some day, we'll see a major terrorist attack carried out by someone disguised as (or actually!) a PWD, and then that will change.