
If you go near the Super Bowl you will be surveilled hard - callmeed
http://www.wired.com/2016/01/govs-plan-keep-super-bowl-safe-massive-surveillance/
======
myztic
I too think measurements like that are "fair", it is one of THE events in the
US, so it makes sense to take special precautions.

That being said, the NFL should pay for this 100%. They should also pay for
their stadiums (not threaten local fans / politicians they will move if not
being financially supported), and frankly they should pay for any security
measures during any NFL games.

The government paying for it is nothing but a quite heavy subsidy they don't
need. It's the same though with any big sports league around the world where
police / government is handling such affairs and the league is not paying for
it.

~~~
Zelphyr
I have to agree. It's pretty disgusting how the owners threaten cities until
they get a new hundreds million dollars stadium, and how the NFL, MLB, and
other leagues are complacent in this.

But what's worse, far worse, is how the fans have no problem with their own
governments being fleeced. Their tax dollars are used to build the lavish
stadiums and then they're expected to pay exorbitant amounts just to go see a
game.

Bread and circuses indeed.

~~~
ohsnapman
The Roman government at least paid for the bread and circuses, right? They
didn't ask the populace to pay for the right to pay for circus season tickets
...

------
pnathan
To be clear, the bombing of the Super Bowl would be both a symbolic and a
devastating coup for a terrorist. It's _perfectly_ pragmatically reasonable
for the law enforcement agencies to take special precautions. What those are,
I decline to comment through ignorance: but precautions are exactly what I'd
like to see.

~~~
kristopolous
Large scale responses to purely imagined nightmares do not come without
consequences to civility and society. On the contrary, it elicits a response
to something that will probably not happen as if it actually already occurred!

The purpose of terrorism is _to elicit this exact response_. When we have the
same reaction whether they show up or not, their goals are met without any
effort or risk on their part!

Extraordinary success. They've gotten all they asked for and didn't have to
lift a finger. Good job for them!

~~~
marcoperaza
> _The purpose of terrorism is to elicit this exact response._

I don't buy this argument. Sure, you defeat your enemy in war by either
destroying his legions or sapping his will to fight, but the last thing that
you want him to do is take defensive positions that will hamper your attacks
while being minimally invasive to his productivity and happiness.

Now, if fear causes your opponent to take self-defeating measures, like ones
that severely hamper economic activity or suppress individual freedom, that's
a different story. It comes down to what the specific measures are.

~~~
kristopolous
War and terrorism are different things.

If I am amassing political power by putting people in fear of say, the United
States, I ought to depict the US as a bunch of people to be feared.

So I show the political leaders saying that they want to kill us and I get
more power. I show all the repressive state tactics of the Americans on their
own people, I get more power. "Look", I say "Even at their sports games, the
evil Americans treat their own citizens like they are in a prison!"

Make no mistake, much of this is puppetry in the same way that the cold war,
or terrorism, or the reds etc was used as a mechanism to gain political power
in the US.

Extreme things like this give an assist to facilitate a foreign orchestration
of political attacks on the other (in this case, the US) and help them
consolidate power. It's geopolitically and intrapolitically counter-productive
--- well that is unless you are trying to control people through the forced-
hand of FUD and not their actual consent.

If this is still hard, think of WW2. It was justified historically because of
how Germans treated the Jews. Everyone is on board with the _presumed
necessary_ large scale destruction of Europe because of the holocaust. It was
the _internal_ horrific politics of the Nazis on people they considered
foreigners which justify this.

If you want your people on board to what they think is a good, justifiable
moral war, depicting your enemy as horrific and anti-freedom is a great
effective way to do this. This only has to be true in the minds of the people
you need to persuade - not _objectively_ true in any sense.

These tactics enfold hawkism and make a mockery of diplomacy and civility.
What kind of world do you want?

One where terrorism campaigns are a smashing success for winning local support
or one where they don't actually work so people stop doing them?

~~~
marcoperaza
> _If this is still hard, think of WW2. It was justified historically because
> of how Germans treated the Jews. Everyone is on board with the presumed
> necessary large scale destruction of Europe because of the holocaust. It was
> the internal horrific politics of the Nazis on people they considered
> foreigners which justify this._

This is just not true. The plight of the Jews was not a major factor in the
United States entering the war, or in the war at all for that matter. The US
entered in response to a direct attack, though we could say that that was just
the tipping point that escalated America's involvement to outright war. The
underlying factors were the defense of allied democracies, and particularly
the fear of a hostile international order where America would stand alone
against the massive totalitarian regimes in Germany, Russia, and Japan, who
likely would have controlled the rest of the world (and thus people and
resources, and thus industrial capacity, and thus military might) between
them. As for how we look back at it, Lincoln's formulation for the Civil War
could apply just as well:

 _[...]that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from
the earth._

~~~
kristopolous
Correct.

I referred to it as historically. I did not claim that the 1945 policies
justified a 1941 entry.

Unlike with say Desert Storm, the Spanish American War, Vietnam, Iraq round 2,
Afghanistan, or the Korean War, nobody I've seen argues in hindsight that we
should have stayed out of the European theater in WW2.

------
omegaworks
It's ridiculous and disgusting. Spending all this public money on a private
event. Shoving the homeless problem under the rug to put on a pretty face for
all the visitors.

Come protest with us. The city needs to invest in lasting solutions, not
temporary ones.
[https://www.facebook.com/events/955997417814447/](https://www.facebook.com/events/955997417814447/)

------
smoyer
Everyone knows that the terrorists will detonate a nuclear bomb at the Super
Bowl when it's in Denver. [1] In all seriousness, if event security is as lax
as the TSA is at airports, what chance do they have of stopping it?
Intercepting the cell traffic of those who are at the game will likely be too
late. If they don't have credible intelligence beforehand, it's still going to
be disasterous.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sum_of_All_Fears_%28film%2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sum_of_All_Fears_%28film%29)

~~~
callmeed
I thought the bomb was brought in through Baltimore and detonated in Baltimore
or DC ...

~~~
smoyer
I had totally forgotten that the movie and book were different. You're
remembering the movie correctly and I was remembering the book (which I read
several times before the movie came out).

------
gersh
I see a lot of police near the ferry building in San Francisco with machine
guns. It feels like the NFL is invading San Francisco.

