Officials protest security measures

Top District of Columbia officials convened yesterday on a newly closed street just north of the Capitol to condemn the U.S. Capitol Police’s increased security measures and their method of implementing the changes.
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As of yesterday morning, all vehicles accessing the Capitol grounds must go through screening at one of 14 different checkpoints around the complex and the portion of 1st Street between Constitution Avenue and D Street N.E. has been closed indefinitely.

The Capitol Police made the changes after the federal government’s announcement Sunday that the terror alert level would rise to orange around financial institutions in Washington, New York City and part of New Jersey because of a specific threat.

“This is an outrage,” Norton said at yesterday’s press conference, referring to this week’s security changes in the District. “You just don’t do this unless it’s a last resort.”
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“I resent having this snuck in here in the dead of night under an orange blanket,” she said.

http://www.hillnews.com/news/080404/officials.aspx

edit to add the WP version "Capitol Hell" (!)

snip>
One House aide notes that "essentially the Capitol Police are suggesting we use alternate routes around the entire Capitol complex, which is a tad hard for all of us who live or work on Capitol Hill. Perhaps they forgot that this is an office complex, neighborhood and tourist destination."

Well, pal, better get used to it. Given that the measures are based on "recent events," most all of them three to four years old, there is very little likelihood the administration can soon, if ever, back down from a state of "high alert." (Imagine how a "never mind," issued anytime before the election, would play.)

A year from now, the specific site information will be four to five years old, but why would that make it any less reliable? Maybe if a more recent al Qaeda CD showed up with a top operative declaring earlier plans have been revised or abandoned -- Newark, of all places, as a top target? -- things might change.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37821-2004Aug3.html

And run lots and lots of ads featuring the barricades, road blocks, police searches and questioning, and say, "Under George W. Bush, our nation's capitol now looks more like a prison than the seat of the people's government. Citizens are detained, questioned, frisked, and treated like criminals simply for going about their normal business.

"Isn't it time we changed our country back from a fortress to the home of freedom and liberty it is meant to be?"

Flash prison inmates in cells or outside and then flash these pictures with that question....

Followed by:

If not vote Kerry to stop the insanity and terrorism at its roots!


EDIT: to clarify

They are treated like criminals most of the Time.

Its been going on for Decades.