Global Security?

Today people are extremely concerned with one matter: matter of their personal security. Of course, it is a natural wish to feel protected and safe, but after 11th of September the whole American security system sure had changed. It became more strict, more global, and even more aggressive.
“Terrorist threat” had became an obsession for millions of US citizens. The attacks showed inability of government to prevent any kind of aggressive actions directed on America. Now we can see that today the main problem of all structures in America became the problem of control and prevention of any kinds of threats – internal and external ones.
Many specialists consider material valuables to become obsolete. Their place took the other sort of valuables – youth of the nation, students and pupils. The future possible intellectual elite, the future of nation – that’s the most tempting target for terrorist, IMHO. And I would like to find out how are they protected by government from any threats.
Associated Press 5/1/99 “Thousands of students stayed home and some schools closed because of rumors and threats of violence, some of them tied to the 54th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's suicide. Threats, warnings and rumors of bloodshed have swept communities across the country ever since April 20, when 13 people were slain at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. The two student gunmen then killed themselves…” “Students at West Valley High School and five other high schools in Shasta County, Calif., found their campuses peppered with white supremacist fliers and swastikas Friday. In Los Angeles, educators feared bogus threats could obscure real danger…”
March 22, 2001, El Cajon, California Granite Hills High “Five people were shot and possible others were injured by gunfire erupted at a high school less than three weeks after two students were killed at a nearby school…” “He just got out of the car, he got down like in a sniper position and just started opening fire…” “Another student said the gunman seemed to be aiming at a school administrator. The boy said he watched as the suspect reloaded his gun and shot randomly…”
NewsMax Wires Sunday, May 11, 2003 Cleveland The suspected gunman, who shot and killed one person and wounded another at Case Western Reserve University, was identified Saturday as 62-year-old Biswanath Haldr. Police said Haldr was a former student and employee who filed a suit against the university a couple of years ago. He lost the suit and the appeal. The incident began around 4:00 p.m. Friday when according to witnesses, who spoke to WKYC-TV, Haldr wearing military fatigues and a helmet broke through a glass door with a sledgehammer and entered the modernistic $62 million Peter B. Lewis building. After a standoff that lasted for several hours SWAT teams entered the Lewis building and several others nearby with weapons drawn. Three people, including a pregnant woman, were rescued shortly after. Case Western is located in University Circle, a usually quiet 550-acre concentration of approximately 50 cultural, medical, educational, religious, and social service institutions located just east of downtown Cleveland. The school has a total enrollment of 9,530 students. The shooting happened about a week before 2,000 students are expected to graduate on May 18.
These are only three cases, showing that almost nothing had change since the NYC attack. Police is unable to prevent any kind of INTERNAL threat, threat, coming from CITIZEN OF US! How can then a terrorist threat be prevented?
On the other hand, much had changed in security of schools and campuses.
“To prevent an incident” means to know about it beforehand and to have time to take needed precautions and measures. In this case, all forces must be focused on usage and development of surveillance devices, which must help security forces to intercept the possible threat. Also local security forces may need help of ISS (Internal Security Service), which will cope with possible INTERNAL terrorist act preparations.

As a remark:

Internal terrorist act preparations – what can stop a terrorist organization from recruiting a student within the educational institution, and then supplying him with needed materials? But also a student can become a terrorist by his will, when, for example, he’d been threatened or attacked by fellow students because of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability or ethnicity.
Yes, there’s still a problem of zero tolerance between some students. Yes, there’s still a problem of racism and hate. Yes, there is a problem of skinhead and KKK organizations, which hate all “colored” people and act extremely aggressive. This are the problems ISS must solve – OR – at lest try to ease.
Back to our main problem, then.
The easiest ways of preventing any potentially dangerous incident are patrols and cameras. For example, more than 400 surveillance cameras watch over the campus of University of Pennsylvania, focused on public streets, dormitory entrances, parking structures, and indoor locations such as the cashier's office. Security officers - usually about four at a time - are assigned to do "video patrols" of the campus, meaning they cycle through live views from the cameras on a bank of monitors in the security control room, or at monitors on their desks, looking for signs of trouble. The university has had security cameras for years, but it has recently installed more and increased the number of locations from which they can be monitored by officers. A growing number of colleges are setting up similar camera networks or greatly expanding existing camera systems.
Still, there is a problem of privacy intervening in such security measure.
At the University of Texas at Austin, at 2003, officials tried to block a freedom-of-information request by a student newspaper for the locations of the campus's security cameras. University officials, who sued the state's attorney general to challenge his ruling that the university must hand over camera information, argue that details about electronic surveillance must remain secret for the system to be effective, and that security cameras on campuses are a matter of national security. Such developments have prompted some critics to ask if Big Brother is coming to college.
Also the debate on the role of cameras on campuses came to Pennsylvania State University at University Park this semester when local officials weighed a plan to install three security cameras on Beaver Avenue, a street near the campus where many students live. Although the university does not have jurisdiction over the area, it has pledged to pitch in up to $10,000 to install the cameras on the street, which has been the site of student riots during an annual summer arts festival, as well as fights and disturbances throughout the year. Some 2,000 students signed a petition opposing the cameras, and about 150 students critical of the cameras attended a meeting of the local city council in April, when the issue came up for a vote. Student’s biggest concern is privacy. Not only do these cameras scan the streets, but they also go into balcony areas. The cameras will pan back and forth, and as they pan they will actually look into people's living areas.
The officials pretend that the cameras will not be able to see anything that couldn't be seen by an officer standing on a street and looking. The camera systems will even use a high-tech digital filter that will black out all windows, so that it will be impossible for an officer to peer into a residence.
Students reply that the filtering system would only block out glass, and so the cameras would be able to see into residences when windows are open.
Now you see that increasing security has its minor drawback of privacy violation. Despite of that, we can see that the amount of cameras is increasing in all major universities. Also, some universities try to solve the problem of combining both privacy and security requests from it’s students.
The University of Pennsylvania, for example, goes out of its way to identify its cameras, by placing signs by each camera and publishing the locations of cameras. The university's philosophy: The cameras might deter criminals from coming to the campus in the first place. Ms. Rush, the Penn vice president, says the combination of man and machine in policing has led to a 32-percent decrease in overall crime from 1996, when cameras were first installed, to 2002.
The second drawback is that the cameras are not always effective. Campus police at Austin admitted that a recording device for one of its cameras malfunctioned on the night when a statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was vandalized -- and therefore the cameras were no help in solving the crime, according to a report in The Daily Texan.
Another way of providing enough security in high education is increasing the number/quality of security officers and patrols.
In Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, school security has been increased through both strict adherence to the security procedures already in place and through the addition of new precautions. Several of the policies that were previously in existence are now more rigorous.
“There have always been guards on both doors at both campuses, but now the entry and exit policy is stricter in terms of the level of ID required to admit someone who is not familiar to the building,” said Head of School Jonathan Cannon. “It is not possible to enter the building except through the main entrance to the building.”
Guards there are looking for unfamiliar faces, and people are being asked for identification. They know most of the parents, and they’re looking for people they’ve never seen before. They will ask them why they are here and whom they have an appointment with.
Also new security procedures include restrictions of times when people can enter the carpool lane, a stricter entry and exit policy into the school and an off-duty police officer in the parking lot. Off-duty police add a level of deterrence, and they add a level of availability if they are needed.
At Rider University the safety and well-being of the campus and community are the primary responsibilities of the Safety and Security Department. The department is staffed by a director, assistant director, coordinator of safety and security, and 24 security officers who cover the Lawrenceville and Westminster Choir College campuses. Security officers patrol both campuses 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. These security officers do not have police powers, but officers undergo continuous training and are qualified in first aid and CPR. The Safety and Security Department, located in the General Services Building at Lawrenceville and in the basement of Bristol Chapel at Westminster, never closes.
At Lawrenceville, the main entrance is closed from 8:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. and all vehicular traffic must enter the campus at the south entrance and show the security officer campus identification or register and display a temporary campus pass. There are ten residence halls and nine small group-living units on campus. Access to exterior doors of most residences is controlled by a Card Access System of electronically encoded photo ID cards. These cards are also required for entry to the campus pub, and the use of the services of the cashier's office, snack bar, and Daly Dining Hall.
At Westminster, there are three residence halls currently utilized. A Card Access System of electronically encoded photo ID cards is also in operation and required for use of various campus services. Students wanting to use the music practice rooms after business hours must contact the Safety & Security Office in order to be allowed entry into those facilities.
Security officers lock all of the academic buildings nightly and conduct routine security walkthroughs in the residence halls.
The Safety & Security Department works to create and maintain a safe and secure environment 24 hours a day. Sodium vapor lights designed to enhance visibility illuminate all parking areas, buildings, and walkways. The department offers a nighttime escort service. This service is operated by qualified student employees, who provide walking and/or mobile escorts. This service is supplemented by Security Officers, as available. There are three code-blue emergency phones on the Lawrenceville campus that provide connection to the Safety & Security Office. Also available are fire safety demonstrations and self-protection seminars, which are designed to inform students and staff about security procedures and practices, as well as current crime statistics. These seminars also encourage students and employees to be responsible for their own security and the security of others and to report any suspicious activities or crimes that occur on campus.
In addition, Rider maintains an active rape prevention program that educates members of both campus communities about ways to lower their risk, as well as how to report an offense. Rider conducts rape prevention seminars and publishes and distributes a brochure entitled "Rape: What to Do If You Need Help." This brochure includes information on specific options for rape victims, resources available, and possible University and public authority responses.
This are the measures which make students feel really protected and secured. In combination with significant amount of cleverly placed cameras this form of security can offer superb protection to all students, thus making them to concentrate on their studies only, and having no doubts about the matter of their protection from any kind of terrorist threat.
The problem of global security is still opened, because there are still many ways for terrorist to plan and execute their attack, as all mentioned measures never lead to 100% security. We can’t add a military squad with AA-guns, with fighters patrolling air space, to a university, right? Plus, there are still internal problems of tolerance, hate, and excessive amounts of unseen violence in universities of America. This is a very important problem to be solved, a problem of both society and morale. Solving this problem will lead to decrease in overall crime/terrorist acts, I suppose. A hard task, but the outcome will be brilliant.
Still, it is good to know that both government and universities authorities realized value of their students and began to take urgent measures to protect them. I really hope that soon their initiative will be supported worldwide, and in some years we won’t have to be afraid, either going to universities, or sending our children there, we won’t have to be suspicious on any strange or unknown people hanging around our educational institutions, and we won’t have to say “Global Security” with question mark.