Your Civil Liberties, Their Hands

Can someone explain to be exactly why this much security is needed for a meeting of Asian political economic leaders? Because, lets be honest, the threat of a "terrorist" attack isn't exactly keeping me awake at night.

The trouble with suicide bombing is that it's a profoundly anti-Darwinian exercise. The most successful suicide bombers die. So there aren't very many around and the ones there are aren't very good at it (Mr Cru refers to the Tiger Tiger and Glasgow Airport events as "attack of the knuckleheads"!). Despite the events of 7th July here in London the tube and buses are running normally. No bags are searched on the way in and I regularly see people riding the transport system in full Islamic dress, carrying bags and ruck-sacks. If anybody wanted to repeat 7th July, there is nothing whatsoever stopping them.

If this is who the police are trying to stop in Sydney, a simple bag search and a careful ID check on everyone going to the conference and staffing the building would be more than sufficient.

Or could it be that this isn't the reason half of Sydney now encompassed by a huge metal wall? Could it be that what they're actually doing is keeping away the protesters. The public who have voted for officials who no longer listen to their voices, politicians so afraid of and so in the pockets of these giant corporations that they allow human rights and the environment to be destroyed in the quest for greater profits.

They should change the entry policy for the conference (or "summit" as they like to call it), let the protesters through the gates and keep the corporate lobbyists out.