Yikes...Statue of Liberty

C

chris in va

New member
Went to visit some friends in NJ, so we naturally wanted to show them the Statue. We all got tickets and waited around for an hour for the next ferry, poking around at souvenirs and shirts.

10 minutes till ferry time, we got in line. Not until you get RIGHT to the outside queue does it inform of an airport-style body search, complete with wands and imaging machines. :eek:

No pepper spray, knives of *any* kind, etc etc. Ran back to the car in the north 40 to empty everything I had on me (Leatherman and OC). I barely made it.

Now obviously I wasn't packing and left the CZ at home in VA, but I certainly didn't expect security like that since the last time I visited the Statue was before 9/11 and you practically just walked on. So anyone visiting 'the sights', beware.
 
Chris

They don't care if you stab someone one the subway just don't do it where a bunch of tourist will see it and might hurt admissions.Or make for bad publicity
 
Been to the statue of liberty before the 911 stuff and it was pretty easy to get in there, besides the long lines. Honestly I wasn't all impressed with the gift from the French, I was hoping for something bigger.

Empire state building was ok, but kinda dumpy, the elevators were rickety.

Good call though on leaving the CZ at home, I doubt they would take too kindly to it. ;)
 
Anyone else find it kinda ironic that shock troops are guarding the statue of liberty?
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Shock troops? Please explain, as I haven't been to the Statue of Liberty lately and this sounds a mite overblown.
 
Shock troops?
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was just overexaderating.

edit: although if the security is anything like they had at the republican national convention, it would not be stretching the truth.
 
Ah, I didn't think of the terrorist angle. Good point.

We did have to remove our belts and shoes though. Pretty tight stuff.
 
Your lucky....I worked in the North Jersey area during and after 9/11/01 and the Statue was closed for about 2 years, and is closed when the NYC area goes into a high terrorist alert. Its a PRIME target, remember Al Qaeda took video to prep the pilots for the 9/11 attacks from liberty island. I went to DC recently and it was the same but to a lesser extent at the Washington monument( I think NYC takes the looking for terrorist job more seriously) . Think about it, The statue of liberty..the washington monument ...tight enclosed tourist attractions that are symbols of America. Islamic terrorist like crowded enclosed space to maximize causalities in an explosion. Trust me you think that is excessive...try driving around NYC during a high terror alert. You haven't lived until you get your SUV pulled over for a random seach by police with MP5s backed up by army guys in humvees with top mounted machine guns, while trying to cross a bridge or go thru a tunnel. I'm a good boy with nothing to hide and I'll take the momentary invasion of my privacy so things don't go boom.
 
Jericho - this pic seems much more appropriate:

251.jpg


Or this one:

SafeguardingOurFreedoms1w.jpg
 
I was in NYC for unrelated purposes back in 1996, hanging out with my friend's (then) girlfriend, and we were going to go for a random spontaneous trip on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, and we also got right up to the booth for tickets before finding out that they had a search policy and an anti-anything-useful policy at the time. This was in 1996. :eek:

I had various metallic reasons that I could not allow myself to be the subject of a search. She understood. We declined to visit this symbol of "freedom." :mad:

I guess you have to subjugate yourself as a sheep before you are allowed to go to the places that celebrate freedom. Only after you've given it up can you visit it.


-azurefly
 
mikeyboy said:
You haven't lived until you get your SUV pulled over for a random seach by police with MP5s backed up by army guys in humvees with top mounted machine guns, while trying to cross a bridge or go thru a tunnel. I'm a good boy with nothing to hide and I'll take the momentary invasion of my privacy so things don't go boom.
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After what you described, I find it puzzling that you haven't figured out that it's the "go ahead and search me without cause; I have nothing to hide anyway" mentality that gave rise to the rest of what you describe.

That is the very attitude that makes the random search by police with MP5s backed up by army guys possible.

On the one hand, you seem displeased by that. On the other hand, you then go right back to saying, "Go ahead and do your warrantless search, herr polizei." :rolleyes:




:mad:


-azurefly
 
You'll like this, too.

Across the street from the new American Indian Museum on the mall in Washington, D.C., is a small arboretum, if that's what you call it. In other words, its a greenhouse and not really so small, actually. We had been to the Indian museum, which is a nice museum, and decided to visit the arboretum before going back home. We had been there before, a couple of years ago.

Going inside, we find that you had to go through an airport-style metal detector. There were three or four black-uniformed policemen, complete with combat boots, manning the entrance. I refused to go through and turned around and left the building, mildly upsetting my wife. This was even though I was and never do carry anything that won't go through a metal detector. After all, D.C. is a pretty safe place but it was the principle of the thing.

I could have made a couple of good jokes about it (This? To look at flowers?) but I am dull-witted. However, the arboretum is just a stone's throw from the U.S. Capitol building and that may explain it. The American Indian museum had something of a checkpoint but no X-ray machine, although I think there may have been a metal detector.
 
Think about it, The statue of liberty..the washington monument ...tight enclosed tourist attractions that are symbols of America. Islamic terrorist like crowded enclosed space to maximize causalities in an explosion. Trust me you think that is excessive...try driving around NYC during a high terror alert. You haven't lived until you get your SUV pulled over for a random seach by police with MP5s backed up by army guys in humvees with top mounted machine guns, while trying to cross a bridge or go thru a tunnel. I'm a good boy with nothing to hide and I'll take the momentary invasion of my privacy so things don't go boom.
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Oh, wow...I don't even know where to start with you.

Islamic terrorist like crowded enclosed space to maximize causalities in an explosion.
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So how would those security measures prevent a terrorist from standing in the packed line for the ferry or the Empire State Building and detonate his bomb?

I'm a good boy with nothing to hide and I'll take the momentary invasion of my privacy so things don't go boom.
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There's no clearer way to say "I value government-promised safety more than I value my freedom."

If you think those things are "momentary", you have a surprise coming your way. There's nothing so permanent as a temporary government measure. The kicker is that you're willing to sell my privacy down the river as well, and you don't even get any real security for it...just the promise and the illusion of safety. Ben Franklin had something to say about folks who give up essential freedoms for the promise of safety...they deserve neither.

If this country clamps down so tightly in fear that I cannot even go to the Statue of Liberty without an x-ray and a body cavity search by machine gun armed police in military gear, then the statue doesn't mean a damn thing anymore. It's just a reminder of the freedoms readily handed in by the American citizens, and all the Americans left who value freedom more than the promise of safety ought to just take Lady Liberty, Old Glory and all the Bald Eagles left in the country, and start up another America somewhere where surrendering one's birthrights to vote whores is a deportation offense. Then the bedwetting scaredycats can finish turning this place into Nazi Germany with Starbucks, and the terrorists will have won without firing another shot.
 
Shock Troops? I was there 4 days after it re-opened from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. All I saw was NYPD SWAT officers, but no shock troops.

^Sarcasm

It was pretty wierd to see them their like that. They looked like they didn't wanna be messed with.
 
..the washington monument ...
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Is just a phalic symbol to show "U.S. supremacy". Kind of like Hitler's regime (leather and whips too).

I still do not see why people would be concerned over a gift given to us by the French (which I will point out has refused to help us out occassionally while we toted our men through their streets in WWII to save their butts). But beyond helping them I guess that we had an ultimate goal in mind... crushing the 3rd reich (spelling, and it was the third right? :rolleyes: )

Good times and great oldies. Does that make sense?
 
marko said:
If this country clamps down so tightly in fear that I cannot even go to the Statue of Liberty without an x-ray and a body cavity search by machine gun armed police in military gear, then the statue doesn't mean a damn thing anymore.
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No x-rays or body cavity searches are required. They're banning knives. What are they afraid of, someone hijacking the statute of liberty? This country has already lost what the statue represents.
 
I know we all love a good French joke.....but look at the Revolutionary War when they helped us first. WWI and WWII were just a pay back in my mind....but know I'm not so sure about the French......
 
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