FBI whistleblower speaks out on event security issues
February 23, 2009 by
Filed under Other News
Coleen Rowley, the FBI whistleblower honored as one of Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year,” takes security fanatics to task in her latest op-ed, “Why the RNC Commission Report’s recommendations aren’t advisable for future big-event planners,” published Friday in the Minnesota Post.
Rowley (who will be a featured speaker at the 2009 National Whistleblower Assembly) contrasts the inauguration of President Barack Obama, a major event that proceeded safely “without tear gas, tasers or thousands of people dragged off in handcuffs” with the debacle that took place in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention and offers some observations, namely that profiling, data-mining and link analysis, and harsh, repressive police tactics don’t work. But, even those pale next to “falling for the notion of trade-offs between security and liberty instead of seeing them as intertwined.”
President Obama phrased it well in his inaugural speech statement, when he said “we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals”.
Obama’s peaceful inauguration constituted the proof of his statement and the proof that policing doesn’t have to be the way it was during the RNC in St. Paul.