Wednesday, 9 May 2012

British tabloid proves you can bring batteries near Olympic Stadium

The Sun, Britain's popular tabloid, took credit for uncovering a massive Olympics scandal this weekend when it ran a story about a man bringing a Tupperware container filled with batteries, wires and a timer into Olympic Park in London. This exposed a "terrifying flaw" in the city's $1.6 billion security program, according to the newspaper.
A worker at the Olympic Park site noticed he wasn't being searched when he re-entered the site's checkpoints in the middle of the day. He decided to create a fake bomb to see whether he could get it past security and took pictures and video of himself bringing it past a number of Olympic venues, including Olympic Stadium. When he was finished with the experiment, he contacted The Sun, "worried about gaping security loopholes."
How noble of both the man and the newspaper. I know if I was a concerned citizen of London, the first outlet I'd go to with this news is The Sun. A trashy tabloid is always the first line of defense when it comes to national security matters.
This stuff isn't a laughing matter. Terrorism is a very real threat and one that demands the money, personnel and attention it garners. But a like a worker bringing some batteries past a checkpoint isn't a "terrifying flaw." At best, it's a cheap stunt designed to sell newspaper. If there's anything to be gleaned from this, it's the sobering reality that everything is vulnerable.

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