Security of Airports and Parliament

On two occasion in the recent weeks security at both places has been breached in a way that should just not have been possible.

First environmental protesters get “airside” at London's Heathrow Airport and scale a large passenger plane and are not noticed until they stand at the tail fin unfurling a large banner and then, only a couple of days after they manage to get into the palace of Westminster, the home of both Houses of Parliament, manage to climb onto the roof and unfurl banners. Again they do not get noticed until the banners are out.

Where, may we ask, was security? If protesters can that easily get airside at one of Britain's biggest and busiest airport totally unnoticed and actually reach a plane on the tarmac – in a parking area – then terrorists can do so too.

The same for the Houses of Parliament; a group of protesters manage to get into the building and onto the roof unmolested: this is just absolutely crazy. It would be crazy already under normal circumstances but under a supposed terrorism threat level of “severe” this just should not be possible.

While the security agencies nigh on try to make movement of the ordinary civilians and citizens more and more difficult without having to pass through security screening devices and having to show IDs people such as those determined environmental protesters get into all of those places where none of us could every get without being stopped. How much easier for someone determined on mayhem; I mean greater mayhem than throwing a couple of bags of flour at the prime minister or scaling a plane or getting onto the roof of the Palace of Westminster.

Somewhere along the line, on two occasions, someone slipped up. Somehow I find it very hard to believe that this can happen twice in two different locations, both of which, nevertheless, should be nigh on impenetrable. Call me a cynic but something, to me, is not right here.

If this is no more than human error then something very seriously need to be improved and for one training must be improved for starters, the guards at least doubled and all blind spots must be eradicated so that CCTV and human surveillance will pick up anything and everything that happens there. The watchers must be rotated often enough so as to ensure that they are not tired and therefore miss someone rushing across some open space or even simply walking along where no one should be walking or whatever.

The way things stand at the moment neither LHR nor Palace of Westminster seem to be protected enough in way of human patrols and also automated detection devices, cameras, and such like.

What is most amazing now, though, is that nothing more is being said in other media and by the government as to these incidents; as if they never happened. What are we to make of that?

© Michael Smith (Veshengro), March 2008