10 ms·

I've traveled to countries before whose offices of government are behind very large fences, protected by unfriendly looking men standing behind heavy machine gu

I've traveled to countries before whose offices of government are behind very large fences, protected by unfriendly looking men standing behind heavy machine guns in armored vehicles – and the guide books are very clear that you are not to take photos of them. I much prefer the approach taken in the USA, where our offices of government are accessible to the people that the government serves. It's very good that I can protest out front without worrying about that unfriendly man with his finger by the trigger to the Browning M2.

davidw 6y ago
Seems like it ought to be possible to have both, to some degree. I don't want the capitol to be a fortress, but they need to prevent stuff like this. I mean... the US spends massive amounts of money on the police and military. I think it should be kind of like a non-Newtonian fluid. Walk in slowly and peacefully and it's ok. Try and punch it, it solidifies quickly.
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
  American history[1] shows this probably isn't a requirement - beyond a foreign military attacking, which is clearly out of scope of policing, the other attacks were acts carried out by isolated people. "Storming the gates" hasn't happened before now. I suspect the main reason that this hasn't happened before is that very large protests/gatherings are often met with a large show of police force to ensure the protestors know this isn't an option. Why that didn't happen today will be interesting to investigate. We all probably have a theory, but what comes out of the inevitable hearings on this will be interesting to see. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/us-capitol-violence-history-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/us-capitol-violence-histor...
  - rayiner 6y ago
    They’re often not met with a show of police force. Here’s a picture of the Million Man March in the 1990s: https://images.app.goo.gl/WSvMYDK4asyav5HX7 https://images.app.goo.gl/WSvMYDK4asyav5HX7 There are hundreds of thousands of people behind the camera, going all the way to the Lincoln Memorial. You can see some security milling around, but no large show of police force.
    - mumblemumble 6y ago
      The Million Man March's attendance didn't include people with an established history of bringing weapons and wearing body armor at ostensibly peaceful demonstrations.
      - chroem- 6y ago
        That couldn't be further from the truth. A large group of Black Panthers armed with assault weapons stormed the CA capitol in 1967 as part of a protest. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/history/article148667224.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/history/article148667224.h...
        mumblemumble 6y ago
        That was almost 3 decades before the Million Man March, and a completely different organization.
        selimthegrim 6y ago
        The Fruit of Islam weren’t there?
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      The Bonus Army protests weren't entirely without conflict.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  There are, for instance, buildings with large areas that are open to the public and other areas which hold large amounts of money that are very important to protect.
- deevolution 6y ago
  If the people really want to overthrow the government, some jacked up defenses around capitol buildings won't stop anything imho, it just means the resistance will bring heavier weapons to match.
  - 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
    Occupying buildings is, honestly, pretty silly if your goal is to overthrow the government. A few years(?) ago, Mitch McConnell's dinner at a restaurant was interrupted by protestors yelling at him. And that was after what happened to Gabby Giffords. Targets with higher ROI are available to people willing to take, ahem, kinetic actions.
- qchris 6y ago
  I actually really like this analogy. I'm curious if there's there's a term for that kind of playbook for folks who are more familiar with building security.
  - joeyrideout 6y ago
    The only analogue that comes to mind is in financial fraud detection: moving money slowly or in a predictable pattern (monthly rent payments etc.) triggers no alarms, but large or unexpected transfers raise alarms.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
      I remember when I left my last job that my manager cautioned me against making any large file transfers since it would trigger IT alarms about employees trying to steal the company's IP. Clearly, he didn't think I was a threat, or if I was, that I would have been smart enough to do it long ago, and slowly :-)
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I don't want the capitol to be a fortress, but they need to prevent stuff like this. And they would have, had the Trump Administration not denied the D.C Mayor's request the day before for the D.C. National Guard to be deployed. The Administration also delayed approval of requests by Virginia and Maryland to send Guard units to the Capitol in response to urgent calls for aid from Congressional leaders when it became clear the MPD and Capitol Police were overwhelmed. Of course, it's a problem when the person inciting the insurrection has authority over important components of the security against it.
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    They (the people inciting it) were literally dancing and having a party and watching the start of the chaos on livestream while it went down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQDgBSSYjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQDgBSSYjI
  - tomp 6y ago
    Do you have a source for this? I read that it was actually the other way around: > A new report Thursday revealed that Sund turned down an offer from the FBI and the National Guard to help cops in the event of unrest. https://nypost.com/2021/01/07/capitol-police-chief-steven-sund-resigns-after-turbulent-dc-protests/ https://nypost.com/2021/01/07/capitol-police-chief-steven-su...
- mrits 6y ago
  I think the reality is that we could have prevented it. We just chose not to murder half the crowd. Preventing it without using lethal force requires a much larger force than you want to keep on hand.
- O_H_E 6y ago
  > I think it should be kind of like a non-Newtonian fluid. Walk in slowly and peacefully and it's ok. Try and punch it, it solidifies quickly. I love that so much.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Most days that’s fair. This week however, they should’ve had the unfriendly man with the M2. This was a predictable problem to literally everyone but the people in charge of protecting the capital.
- mistermann 6y ago
  This makes it sound like the people in charge of protecting the capital did not know that this was a legitimate threat. From the articles I've read, they did in fact help that it was a legitimate threat, which raises the question: why did they do nothing about it?
  - 121789 6y ago
    The only reasonable conclusion I can think of is that the security team had no worry that politicians would be in any danger (e.g. easy, isolated, fast escape routes) and that it would be hard to rationalize to bring out the troops/big security forces with a threat of violence for a group of people that was supported by the current president and a significant fraction of congress and the senate. The whole situation feels very strange and it feels like I'm missing some key facts.
    - mistermann 6y ago
      I think there are many plausible (but not necessarily "reasonable") alternative explanations. As far as I can tell, this event seems to have had an extremely persuasive effect on the psyche and opinions of the average person. Who might benefit from this change in the mental state of the population, and in what ways? Most people seem to find the very idea of thinking such thoughts to be extremely unpleasant, if not downright inappropriate. But to me, this is simple risk management. The lack of this sort of thinking in society seems downright dangerous to me. I sometimes wonder what the origin of such norms is - is it organic (a common characteristic derived from evolution), or might it be synthetic?
      - Twixes 6y ago
ashleshbiradar 6y ago
Yep, in India they directly detain all protesters anywhere near the parliament area and the immediate surroundings
- grey-area 6y ago
  The Indian parliament was attacked by heavily armed gunmen in 2001, so that's not so surprising.
pySSK 6y ago
I agree with the more open approach, but shouldn't her office have a simple keycard or combo lock on the door? Even Starbucks toilets have better security. From the pictures I saw, she was still logged in and had the evacuation message onscreen. I'm guessing she didn't have 'require login after screensaver' option enabled. If the account is still logged in, this is a massive breach!
- setpatchaddress 6y ago
  it was somebody else's account. Also, see @foone's thread here: https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1346924327996772354 https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1346924327996772354 tl;dr: the government has appropriate computer security in place to prevent this sort of thing, and it's not clear what the deal was with that particular computer.
  - pnutjam 6y ago
    how hard is <window key> + L to lock your screen?
    - 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
      When you hear the mob screaming outside, glass breaking, and are likely being told to evacuate by messages on your computer and security outside? I wouldn't bet that I'd remember. Not locking your screen is as expected as it is forgivable under the circumstances.
  - ant6n 6y ago
    Yeah it’s definitiv a different desk than the ohne in the picture with the guy who broke into pelosis office.
- kube-system 6y ago
  > I agree with the more open approach, but shouldn't her office have a simple keycard or combo lock on the door? Congressional offices are frequent meeting spaces with people who do not work there. Their job, after all, is to represent the public. Locking the public out of their offices is kind of antithetical to the job description.
diveanon 6y ago
Unfortunately we don't live in that world anymore. There is a major opposition movement growing, and it pains me to say it but Trump was right in his last speech. 'This is just the beginning'
dbeley 6y ago
So just a couple hundreds of people can protest in front of the building, enter elected official offices and steal laptops most likely containing very sensitive data (hopefully encrypted though)? I agree with you but I think there ought to be a little more protection of that.
_ph_ 6y ago
You don't need to fence the whole area off. Just a few reinforced doors at strategic places would have stopped anyone without heavy equipment. Also they would have been a place for the police to stand their ground. Just all stairs going upwards should be easy to defend if the police stands their ground. Add a few police dogs and the officers wouldn't even have to engage themselves. There was a smaller crowd trying to enter the German parliament just a few weeks ago, politically pretty close to the rioters of Washington. A whole three policemen were able to stop them by just consequently standing their ground, not armend beyond batons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc-56opg-Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc-56opg-Xg
mumblemumble 6y ago
This is a false dichotomy, though. There is an enormous gamut of security steps in between turning the capitol into a fortress, and locking the door to your office when you're not there.
- pc86 6y ago
  Not trying to nitpick but they were specifically told to keep the doors unlocked, by security.
mmmBacon 6y ago
As a huge democrat (lower case d) I totally agree. Locking down the Capitol is antithetical to the notion of open democracy. Lawmakers and the law making process needs to be physically accessible by the People. This was what the Founders intended. Of course there is some risk here and Jefferson himself noted this. That’s the price we pay for living in an open and transparent society. While I don’t condone or support what happened this week, the building belongs to the People and not the government and the People have every right to enter the building and demand accountability. The way the US Capitol is right now feels very police-state to me compared to how it used to be. I have memories of running around the Capitol building with my Cub Scout pack including ending up in private areas. There were no assault weapons and we weren’t met with police. We were politely shooed away. Today you cannot walk up the steps of the Capitol building. It’s fenced off and manned by armed guard. Last time I was there I stepped aside to let some people pass in a crowded area and crossed some arbitrary unmarked do not cross line but about 12 inches. I was physically grabbed by Police. To quote Donald Rumsfeld “freedom is untidy.”
- spoonjim 6y ago
  > the People have every right to enter the building and demand accountability. the "People" can't just do whatever they want just because they feel like it. Can they go and bang hammers on nuclear warheads because the warheads "belong to the People"? Storm the doors of JPL and play horsey on the Mars Rovers? When some subset of the "People" attempt to overthrow the duly elected government of the other 99% of the People, they are traitors, and should be erased from society.
- IkmoIkmo 6y ago
  I think that's nonsense. Access to a lawmaker or representative in a village may work like that. When you represent a state of 20 million, access means making an appointment and going through security clearance. There is a voting mechanism, a free press and various other mechanisms to back me up if I am consistently deterred from speaking to my public representative. But I'm in no way expecting to just walk in there, unannounced, without security clearance, at any time of the day, to demand attention. Might as well argue that you should be able to just walk into the white house and speak to the top public representative.
petre 6y ago
US embassies just about everywhere are like that. The one in Budapest has two inch thick metal bar gates and guards armed with machine guns. Lesson learned from the embassy hostage crisis in Iran. Anyway, an angry mob of wacko rioters shouldn't violently force their way into the legislative's building. They should respect the outcome of the democratic vote and vote again in four years. Maybe if this was Iran I would say okay, people are fed up with the ayatollah and the revolutionary guards, but this is the US and the poor buggers are being manipulated, shot tear gas at and four of them got killed. For what? Absolutely nothing. The unfortunate officer died doing his job. This is very sad and scary, it looks like civil war brewing. A really bad thing to happen to a nation armed with nukes. Please do not let it happen, it is within your power to distance yourselves from these people and just say no to violence and vandalism.
JamesSwift 6y ago
For national security buildings (e.g. the NSA) it is the exact same as your foreign country experience. The guards around the perimeter are very quick to engage and ask what you are doing if you meander around the outside.
- kube-system 6y ago
  Yes, it is understandable that security works that way in a building occupied by people whose job it is to keep secrets... but that is not the way security should work at a building of democratic representatives where their job is to be publicly accountable.
- SI_Rob 6y ago
  The NASA HQ administration building off 4th and E just south of the Mall has no armed guards posted outside, and there's even a NASA public credit union in the building, which does not require passing through the metal detectors or security post just a couple doors away in the same open lobby. It is visited by plenty of non-NASA, non-government ordinary customers who could easily blend in with official foot traffic on a busy day and make just a dozen paces to the main elevator banks or stairwells looking for an opportunity.
  - jdmn 6y ago
    The NSA (National Security Agency) and NASA are very different organizations within government.
    - SI_Rob 6y ago
      I misread the OP as NASA, which was careless but I still think the observation is worth noting. Also worth noting is that there is a museum on the NSA campus (National Cryptologic Museum) that anyone can visit without any clearance, and though there are vastly trickier chicanes to contend with compared to the access at NASA administrative HQ, merely visiting the cryptologic museum ushers one past several otherwise highly restricted perimeter zones.
rootusrootus 6y ago
I agree. One of my favorite aspects of visiting DC is the remarkable extent to which ordinary citizens have access to the workings of government. Sure, there's some security, but mostly to keep things orderly, not secret.
bcrosby95 6y ago
They should beef up security. And keep it open. And not so obvious. The simple fact of the matter is that a violent riot stormed the capitol building and nearly overwhelmed local forces. Congress asked for extra help and it wasn't provided. Governors asked if they could send in the guard to help and the man whom stoked the riot gave no permission. It's a fucking miracle that January 6th wasn't one of the worst days in the history of the US.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Um, the police waved them through. It was in cooperation with Capitol police. No 'overwhelming' necessary. Which is worrisome in a whole nother way. https://twitter.com/bumbera_steven/status/1347270969988173825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1347342530506010634%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.13newsnow.com%2Farticle%2Fnews%2Fus-capitol-police-complicit-in-dc-riots-worries-us-congressman%2F65-c6b49029-f067-4dec-88ed-c58371630501 https://twitter.com/bumbera_steven/status/134727096998817382... <edit> video
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - dxdm 6y ago
    Look at the videos, no waving through going on, quite the opposite. One woman was shot by police and died.
  - pc86 6y ago
    You've seen different footage than I have, then.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bcrosby95 6y ago
    8 second videos don't tell much of a story. That is them falling back because they didn't have enough people to hold the perimeter. Here is a longer video of them at one of the entrances of the building: https://youtu.be/cJOgGsC0G9U?t=140 https://youtu.be/cJOgGsC0G9U?t=140
koyote 6y ago
> I much prefer the approach taken in the USA, where our offices of government are accessible to the people that the government serves. It's very good that I can protest out front without worrying about that unfriendly man with his finger by the trigger to the Browning M2. And yet your government offices abroad (embassies) are the most fortified I've ever seen. I've been to several countries' embassies and the US one was like entering a secret nuclear bunker. There was airport-style security, and everyone I talked to was behind a massive sheet of bullet-proof glass; never mind the gates and moat around the building. This was in a small, US-friendly and highly developed country. Then there's the excessive amount of security around any US governmental visit to a foreign country. So I think it comes to a surprise to many outside the US that one of your main government buildings has less security than a museum even when all the most important politicians are inside. But yes I agree, I think government buildings should be 'friendly'.
grecy 6y ago
> protected by unfriendly looking men standing behind heavy machine guns Just a few months ago that is exactly what the steps of the US Capitol looked like [1]. Even when disabled people try to protest there they are removed by force [2] They have no trouble keeping people out they really don't want inside, it seems. But when people show up wearing body armour and carrying weapons, for some reason they are not stopped. [1] https://twitter.com/oliviamunn/status/1346933669869481986 https://twitter.com/oliviamunn/status/1346933669869481986 [2] https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a12466578/disabled-protesters-healthcare-hearing/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a12466578/disabled-pro...

davidw 6y ago

Seems like it ought to be possible to have both, to some degree. I don't want the capitol to be a fortress, but they need to prevent stuff like this. I mean... the US spends massive amounts of money on the police and military. I think it should be kind of like a non-Newtonian fluid. Walk in slowly and peacefully and it's ok. Try and punch it, it solidifies quickly.

35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
American history[1] shows this probably isn't a requirement - beyond a foreign military attacking, which is clearly out of scope of policing, the other attacks were acts carried out by isolated people. "Storming the gates" hasn't happened before now. I suspect the main reason that this hasn't happened before is that very large protests/gatherings are often met with a large show of police force to ensure the protestors know this isn't an option. Why that didn't happen today will be interesting to investigate. We all probably have a theory, but what comes out of the inevitable hearings on this will be interesting to see. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/us-capitol-violence-history-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/us-capitol-violence-histor...
- rayiner 6y ago
  They’re often not met with a show of police force. Here’s a picture of the Million Man March in the 1990s: https://images.app.goo.gl/WSvMYDK4asyav5HX7 https://images.app.goo.gl/WSvMYDK4asyav5HX7 There are hundreds of thousands of people behind the camera, going all the way to the Lincoln Memorial. You can see some security milling around, but no large show of police force.
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    The Million Man March's attendance didn't include people with an established history of bringing weapons and wearing body armor at ostensibly peaceful demonstrations.
    - chroem- 6y ago
      That couldn't be further from the truth. A large group of Black Panthers armed with assault weapons stormed the CA capitol in 1967 as part of a protest. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/history/article148667224.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/history/article148667224.h...
      - mumblemumble 6y ago
        That was almost 3 decades before the Million Man March, and a completely different organization.
        selimthegrim 6y ago
        The Fruit of Islam weren’t there?
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    The Bonus Army protests weren't entirely without conflict.
tshaddox 6y ago
There are, for instance, buildings with large areas that are open to the public and other areas which hold large amounts of money that are very important to protect.
deevolution 6y ago
If the people really want to overthrow the government, some jacked up defenses around capitol buildings won't stop anything imho, it just means the resistance will bring heavier weapons to match.
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
  Occupying buildings is, honestly, pretty silly if your goal is to overthrow the government. A few years(?) ago, Mitch McConnell's dinner at a restaurant was interrupted by protestors yelling at him. And that was after what happened to Gabby Giffords. Targets with higher ROI are available to people willing to take, ahem, kinetic actions.
qchris 6y ago
I actually really like this analogy. I'm curious if there's there's a term for that kind of playbook for folks who are more familiar with building security.
- joeyrideout 6y ago
  The only analogue that comes to mind is in financial fraud detection: moving money slowly or in a predictable pattern (monthly rent payments etc.) triggers no alarms, but large or unexpected transfers raise alarms.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
    I remember when I left my last job that my manager cautioned me against making any large file transfers since it would trigger IT alarms about employees trying to steal the company's IP. Clearly, he didn't think I was a threat, or if I was, that I would have been smart enough to do it long ago, and slowly :-)
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I don't want the capitol to be a fortress, but they need to prevent stuff like this. And they would have, had the Trump Administration not denied the D.C Mayor's request the day before for the D.C. National Guard to be deployed. The Administration also delayed approval of requests by Virginia and Maryland to send Guard units to the Capitol in response to urgent calls for aid from Congressional leaders when it became clear the MPD and Capitol Police were overwhelmed. Of course, it's a problem when the person inciting the insurrection has authority over important components of the security against it.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  They (the people inciting it) were literally dancing and having a party and watching the start of the chaos on livestream while it went down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQDgBSSYjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQDgBSSYjI
- tomp 6y ago
  Do you have a source for this? I read that it was actually the other way around: > A new report Thursday revealed that Sund turned down an offer from the FBI and the National Guard to help cops in the event of unrest. https://nypost.com/2021/01/07/capitol-police-chief-steven-sund-resigns-after-turbulent-dc-protests/ https://nypost.com/2021/01/07/capitol-police-chief-steven-su...
mrits 6y ago
I think the reality is that we could have prevented it. We just chose not to murder half the crowd. Preventing it without using lethal force requires a much larger force than you want to keep on hand.
O_H_E 6y ago
> I think it should be kind of like a non-Newtonian fluid. Walk in slowly and peacefully and it's ok. Try and punch it, it solidifies quickly. I love that so much.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Most days that’s fair. This week however, they should’ve had the unfriendly man with the M2. This was a predictable problem to literally everyone but the people in charge of protecting the capital.

mistermann 6y ago
This makes it sound like the people in charge of protecting the capital did not know that this was a legitimate threat. From the articles I've read, they did in fact help that it was a legitimate threat, which raises the question: why did they do nothing about it?
- 121789 6y ago
  The only reasonable conclusion I can think of is that the security team had no worry that politicians would be in any danger (e.g. easy, isolated, fast escape routes) and that it would be hard to rationalize to bring out the troops/big security forces with a threat of violence for a group of people that was supported by the current president and a significant fraction of congress and the senate. The whole situation feels very strange and it feels like I'm missing some key facts.
  - mistermann 6y ago
    I think there are many plausible (but not necessarily "reasonable") alternative explanations. As far as I can tell, this event seems to have had an extremely persuasive effect on the psyche and opinions of the average person. Who might benefit from this change in the mental state of the population, and in what ways? Most people seem to find the very idea of thinking such thoughts to be extremely unpleasant, if not downright inappropriate. But to me, this is simple risk management. The lack of this sort of thinking in society seems downright dangerous to me. I sometimes wonder what the origin of such norms is - is it organic (a common characteristic derived from evolution), or might it be synthetic?
    - Twixes 6y ago

ashleshbiradar 6y ago

Yep, in India they directly detain all protesters anywhere near the parliament area and the immediate surroundings

grey-area 6y ago
The Indian parliament was attacked by heavily armed gunmen in 2001, so that's not so surprising.

pySSK 6y ago

I agree with the more open approach, but shouldn't her office have a simple keycard or combo lock on the door? Even Starbucks toilets have better security. From the pictures I saw, she was still logged in and had the evacuation message onscreen. I'm guessing she didn't have 'require login after screensaver' option enabled. If the account is still logged in, this is a massive breach!

setpatchaddress 6y ago
it was somebody else's account. Also, see @foone's thread here: https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1346924327996772354 https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1346924327996772354 tl;dr: the government has appropriate computer security in place to prevent this sort of thing, and it's not clear what the deal was with that particular computer.
- pnutjam 6y ago
  how hard is <window key> + L to lock your screen?
  - 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
    When you hear the mob screaming outside, glass breaking, and are likely being told to evacuate by messages on your computer and security outside? I wouldn't bet that I'd remember. Not locking your screen is as expected as it is forgivable under the circumstances.
- ant6n 6y ago
  Yeah it’s definitiv a different desk than the ohne in the picture with the guy who broke into pelosis office.
kube-system 6y ago
> I agree with the more open approach, but shouldn't her office have a simple keycard or combo lock on the door? Congressional offices are frequent meeting spaces with people who do not work there. Their job, after all, is to represent the public. Locking the public out of their offices is kind of antithetical to the job description.

diveanon 6y ago

Unfortunately we don't live in that world anymore. There is a major opposition movement growing, and it pains me to say it but Trump was right in his last speech. 'This is just the beginning'

dbeley 6y ago

So just a couple hundreds of people can protest in front of the building, enter elected official offices and steal laptops most likely containing very sensitive data (hopefully encrypted though)? I agree with you but I think there ought to be a little more protection of that.

_ph_ 6y ago

You don't need to fence the whole area off. Just a few reinforced doors at strategic places would have stopped anyone without heavy equipment. Also they would have been a place for the police to stand their ground. Just all stairs going upwards should be easy to defend if the police stands their ground. Add a few police dogs and the officers wouldn't even have to engage themselves. There was a smaller crowd trying to enter the German parliament just a few weeks ago, politically pretty close to the rioters of Washington. A whole three policemen were able to stop them by just consequently standing their ground, not armend beyond batons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc-56opg-Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc-56opg-Xg

mumblemumble 6y ago

This is a false dichotomy, though. There is an enormous gamut of security steps in between turning the capitol into a fortress, and locking the door to your office when you're not there.

pc86 6y ago
Not trying to nitpick but they were specifically told to keep the doors unlocked, by security.

mmmBacon 6y ago

As a huge democrat (lower case d) I totally agree. Locking down the Capitol is antithetical to the notion of open democracy. Lawmakers and the law making process needs to be physically accessible by the People. This was what the Founders intended. Of course there is some risk here and Jefferson himself noted this. That’s the price we pay for living in an open and transparent society. While I don’t condone or support what happened this week, the building belongs to the People and not the government and the People have every right to enter the building and demand accountability. The way the US Capitol is right now feels very police-state to me compared to how it used to be. I have memories of running around the Capitol building with my Cub Scout pack including ending up in private areas. There were no assault weapons and we weren’t met with police. We were politely shooed away. Today you cannot walk up the steps of the Capitol building. It’s fenced off and manned by armed guard. Last time I was there I stepped aside to let some people pass in a crowded area and crossed some arbitrary unmarked do not cross line but about 12 inches. I was physically grabbed by Police. To quote Donald Rumsfeld “freedom is untidy.”

spoonjim 6y ago
> the People have every right to enter the building and demand accountability. the "People" can't just do whatever they want just because they feel like it. Can they go and bang hammers on nuclear warheads because the warheads "belong to the People"? Storm the doors of JPL and play horsey on the Mars Rovers? When some subset of the "People" attempt to overthrow the duly elected government of the other 99% of the People, they are traitors, and should be erased from society.
IkmoIkmo 6y ago
I think that's nonsense. Access to a lawmaker or representative in a village may work like that. When you represent a state of 20 million, access means making an appointment and going through security clearance. There is a voting mechanism, a free press and various other mechanisms to back me up if I am consistently deterred from speaking to my public representative. But I'm in no way expecting to just walk in there, unannounced, without security clearance, at any time of the day, to demand attention. Might as well argue that you should be able to just walk into the white house and speak to the top public representative.

petre 6y ago

US embassies just about everywhere are like that. The one in Budapest has two inch thick metal bar gates and guards armed with machine guns. Lesson learned from the embassy hostage crisis in Iran. Anyway, an angry mob of wacko rioters shouldn't violently force their way into the legislative's building. They should respect the outcome of the democratic vote and vote again in four years. Maybe if this was Iran I would say okay, people are fed up with the ayatollah and the revolutionary guards, but this is the US and the poor buggers are being manipulated, shot tear gas at and four of them got killed. For what? Absolutely nothing. The unfortunate officer died doing his job. This is very sad and scary, it looks like civil war brewing. A really bad thing to happen to a nation armed with nukes. Please do not let it happen, it is within your power to distance yourselves from these people and just say no to violence and vandalism.

JamesSwift 6y ago

For national security buildings (e.g. the NSA) it is the exact same as your foreign country experience. The guards around the perimeter are very quick to engage and ask what you are doing if you meander around the outside.

kube-system 6y ago
Yes, it is understandable that security works that way in a building occupied by people whose job it is to keep secrets... but that is not the way security should work at a building of democratic representatives where their job is to be publicly accountable.
SI_Rob 6y ago
The NASA HQ administration building off 4th and E just south of the Mall has no armed guards posted outside, and there's even a NASA public credit union in the building, which does not require passing through the metal detectors or security post just a couple doors away in the same open lobby. It is visited by plenty of non-NASA, non-government ordinary customers who could easily blend in with official foot traffic on a busy day and make just a dozen paces to the main elevator banks or stairwells looking for an opportunity.
- jdmn 6y ago
  The NSA (National Security Agency) and NASA are very different organizations within government.
  - SI_Rob 6y ago
    I misread the OP as NASA, which was careless but I still think the observation is worth noting. Also worth noting is that there is a museum on the NSA campus (National Cryptologic Museum) that anyone can visit without any clearance, and though there are vastly trickier chicanes to contend with compared to the access at NASA administrative HQ, merely visiting the cryptologic museum ushers one past several otherwise highly restricted perimeter zones.

rootusrootus 6y ago

I agree. One of my favorite aspects of visiting DC is the remarkable extent to which ordinary citizens have access to the workings of government. Sure, there's some security, but mostly to keep things orderly, not secret.

bcrosby95 6y ago

They should beef up security. And keep it open. And not so obvious. The simple fact of the matter is that a violent riot stormed the capitol building and nearly overwhelmed local forces. Congress asked for extra help and it wasn't provided. Governors asked if they could send in the guard to help and the man whom stoked the riot gave no permission. It's a fucking miracle that January 6th wasn't one of the worst days in the history of the US.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Um, the police waved them through. It was in cooperation with Capitol police. No 'overwhelming' necessary. Which is worrisome in a whole nother way. https://twitter.com/bumbera_steven/status/1347270969988173825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1347342530506010634%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.13newsnow.com%2Farticle%2Fnews%2Fus-capitol-police-complicit-in-dc-riots-worries-us-congressman%2F65-c6b49029-f067-4dec-88ed-c58371630501 https://twitter.com/bumbera_steven/status/134727096998817382... <edit> video
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dxdm 6y ago
  Look at the videos, no waving through going on, quite the opposite. One woman was shot by police and died.
- pc86 6y ago
  You've seen different footage than I have, then.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  8 second videos don't tell much of a story. That is them falling back because they didn't have enough people to hold the perimeter. Here is a longer video of them at one of the entrances of the building: https://youtu.be/cJOgGsC0G9U?t=140 https://youtu.be/cJOgGsC0G9U?t=140

koyote 6y ago

> I much prefer the approach taken in the USA, where our offices of government are accessible to the people that the government serves. It's very good that I can protest out front without worrying about that unfriendly man with his finger by the trigger to the Browning M2. And yet your government offices abroad (embassies) are the most fortified I've ever seen. I've been to several countries' embassies and the US one was like entering a secret nuclear bunker. There was airport-style security, and everyone I talked to was behind a massive sheet of bullet-proof glass; never mind the gates and moat around the building. This was in a small, US-friendly and highly developed country. Then there's the excessive amount of security around any US governmental visit to a foreign country. So I think it comes to a surprise to many outside the US that one of your main government buildings has less security than a museum even when all the most important politicians are inside. But yes I agree, I think government buildings should be 'friendly'.

grecy 6y ago

> protected by unfriendly looking men standing behind heavy machine guns Just a few months ago that is exactly what the steps of the US Capitol looked like [1]. Even when disabled people try to protest there they are removed by force [2] They have no trouble keeping people out they really don't want inside, it seems. But when people show up wearing body armour and carrying weapons, for some reason they are not stopped. [1] https://twitter.com/oliviamunn/status/1346933669869481986 https://twitter.com/oliviamunn/status/1346933669869481986 [2] https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a12466578/disabled-protesters-healthcare-hearing/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a12466578/disabled-pro...