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ChasingBlueSky

Does this security checkpoint make sense?

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Why? What does this do for safety? I've been riding this train for almost 10 years and have never once had a problem. Especially in the morning when the car is packed, air conditioned and most people are reading the paper, sleeping or have their headsets on.

Plus each train has 6 security cameras on it already.




First off- Hey Bo! How are you? Whatcha been up to? How's Wookie? Talk to him recently?
Why dontcha feel safer/sleep more soundly knowing some asshat is not going to try to steal yer wallet/backpack since the two CPD cops are there? I always relaxed when a Cop/Guardian Angel got onto the El train I was on...

I soo miss Chicago. But it's too cold in Winter and traffic is too much. Living away from there has made me soft.

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I know in the post 9/11 world that the high profile buildings in the city will have increased security, and that's fine. But this is pointless since they really don't DO anything! What these buildings need to be doing (including the one I work in) is practice evacuation drills!



I can understand the security at high profile buildings, but they are not doing security at the buildings, parking lots and underground streets that surround those buildings. That is a huge security liability. But apparently an airport on the lakefront is a bigger security risk than one of the top tourist attractions in the world?

Also, the train departs from Midway Airport, there is a police station there but often there is only one Cop looking out. With the massive crowds that come thru that station every morning (travelers, school kids, workers, etc) there is no way they could watch everyone there. Like ClownBurner said - it gives a false sense of security and a bit of CYA in case something happens. Then there is no security from the gate where you pay your fare until you see those cops almost 7 stops later. A terrorist attack could still happen in that huge security hole.

I would tend to think that a terrorist attack on a small out of the way target would cause more fear than anything else. NYC, DC, LA, Chicago? Anyone would expect that. But to hit a small out of the way part of town would cause more fear and paranoia and harm to your everyday way of thinking about your home neighborhood.

I am not a security expert but it seems like the attention has been on only high profile areas and leaving huge holes in between. Somehow I think something better could be done.
_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

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Well Brian, If you are on a train that gets blowen to all hell you might be glad that Chicago is doing something about terriorist.

If you do not like it then drive to work. Better safe then sorry. They check the trains i take from CHicago to Aurora all the time, it is part of life. Sometime we forget how well we have it here in America. Be grateful we have this kick ass country to live in,we can walk the streets anytime day or night we do not have to dodge gun fire or bombs going off all day long like many other places..

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Tim,

Re read what I am saying. I see what they are doing as a placebo. There could be real security issues they are not dealing with - and if I can see them, I'm sure anyone with a point to prove could do it as well.

I can look out my window at the Sears Tower right now and count over a dozen security risks...and changes could be made that wouldn't take away personal freedom or rights.
_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

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Hi CBS

After reading all the posts I had to check that I wasn't in speakers corner.

IMO throwing money at the problem without "actionable intelligence" is like looking for a needle in hell.

Need to treat the root of the problem to prevent, most bad stuff from happening. But there will always be someone pissed off enough that their willing to die and take some innocent folks with them.

It's a new cold war with new rules. No ones going to win, or get even.[:/]

R.I.P.

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The bombing over Lockerbie was triggered by altitude, not time. .




That is not correct. Initially, it was thought to have been a barometric activated IED. However, further investigation revealed that the device was detonated by a timer. More precisely ,it was a microchip designed as a precise timer known as ICC(Integrated Circuit Chip) 555 and another varient 4017. They can be programmed from secs to days and can be configured in pairs. These devices were placed inside a Toshiba cassete recorder which was inside a piece of luggage. The microchips recovered were traced by their serial numbers to Mebo AG, a now defunct Swiss electronics manufacturing company, which in 1985 sold 22 of them to a Libyan firm with ties to the Libyan Interior of Ministry.

If you wish to know more about this incident PM me.



Clownburner wrote:
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It doesn't make anyone actually safer, but it makes the ignorant masses FEEL safer, so that's what they do. The security experts know there isn't much they can do to prevent someone from bringing a bomb on board a train, but they have to be seen to do something, so they do something useless.

The problem with this approach is that they're instilling people with a false sense of security.




It is that attitude that the general public likes to grasp and perpetuate when they don't understand what they see being done, or think what isn't being done to protect them. I can 100% guarantee you a way to make it impossible for you to place an object in or on anything but you won't like the way it's done. In lieu of such drastic measures others can be taken that make a potential target look less apealing to terrorists becasue it is seen as a hard target. People are responsible for their own security within reason. If you walk around oblivious to your surroundings and are not situationaly aware you are more likely to be a victim of crime be it street crime or terrorism. Even though you see cops looking the train over you should still question that back pack wrapped in duct tape or someone acting suspcious and report it immediately. It's peoples involvement in being part of the solution and not complaining about the problem that makes everyones life safer.
"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

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Be grateful we have this kick ass country to live in,we can walk the streets anytime day or night we do not have to dodge gun fire or bombs going off all day long like many other places..
__________________________________________________ LMAO. Guess you havn't lived in some of the cities in the Good Old US of A that I have[:/]
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

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Both the 555 timer chip and the 4017 decade counter/divider chip are readily available common CMOS chips off the shelf at any radio shack or electronics outlet. I've built a buttload of gizmos around those two particular chips, mostly LED sequencers. And actually you use a 555 to generate clock pulses for the 4017 and you can cascade em (4017s) not just in pairs but as many as you like.
Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

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Point everyone seems to have missed is that by stopping the train for an indeterminate amount of time will throw off any schedule of someone wishing to cause harm. Terrorist have a strict time table. If you can disrubt their abillity to stay on schedule then you "might" remove a possible means of terror for them.



Terrorists have a strict timetable??!

They're not automatrons - they do have some brain power and I think they can adapt to a 7 (15? why so vague) delay easily enough. No, what they've done is delayed a thousand people 7-15 minutes, with nothing to show for it.

It would be a bit funny to be protesting oil politics by discouraging mass transit. Then again, we had protesters doing exactly that in San Francisco in the past.

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readily available common CMOS chips off the shelf at any radio shack or electronics outlet



Yep they are indeed quite common now a days as you stated. Radio shack sells quite a few handy things if you know what your looking for.
"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

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Both the 555 timer chip and the 4017 decade counter/divider chip are readily available common CMOS chips off the shelf at any radio shack or electronics outlet. I've built a buttload of gizmos around those two particular chips, mostly LED sequencers. And actually you use a 555 to generate clock pulses for the 4017 and you can cascade em (4017s) not just in pairs but as many as you like.



I have both in my workshop right now - as well as a bunch of PIC microcontrollers, quartz oscillators, 14 R/C systems, some rocket motors... None of them as dangerous as a gallon of gasoline in the right place.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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readily available common CMOS chips off the shelf at any radio shack or electronics outlet



Yep they are indeed quite common now a days as you stated. Radio shack sells quite a few handy things if you know what your looking for.



They were also common in 1988. Radio Shack had them then (as well as Digi-Key, from which almost any electronic item could be obtained). I think I first used a 555 in 1978.

However, I don't know why the bombers bothered to make a timer from chips when kitchen timers were (and still are) already available that do the job just fine.

Fact is, almost anyone with a good engineering education and access to a decent workshop could come up with ways to thwart these feel-good security measures.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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