My Visit to the US Capitol's Senate and House Chambers

This past October Melissa and I traveled to Washington D.C. and spent much of our time touring the area.  On Wednesday the 25th we walked across the Mall to the U.S. Capitol building, walked in though the eastern visitors entrance, went through the expected security check, and enjoyed their guided tour which included a discussion of the many statues there as well as the various large historically-themed paintings ringing the Rotunda.  But I wanted more: being an avid C-Span viewer, I wanted to see firsthand what the Senate and House of Representatives chambers looked like from their upper galleries.  An employee there helpfully informed us that we could get passes for the Senate gallery...and possibly even for the House...by stopping by the office of one of our two Florida senators.  Seeing that Marco Rubio's place, in the nearby Russell Building, was much closer than Bill Nelson's in the Hart Building, we set out there, entered this vast building, and promptly found ourselves totally lost, going up and down the labyrinth of long hallways and following misleading signs.  Eventually, though, we managed to stumble upon Rubio's office...the senator wasn't there, Congress being out of session at the time...but it was full of happy, friendly staffers, one of whom graciously reached into a drawer and pulled out Senate and House gallery passes for each of us: Senator Rubio, I'm not a big fan of your politics, but your staff rocks! We returned to the Capitol visitors entrance and were now informed that we had to stand in line outside, several paces from the entrance, and endure scrutiny (including by a sniffing security dog) before we were incrementally allowed in and repeat the security check.  Then we went to the Senate gallery doorway and walked in after showing a guard our passes. And there it was, just like I was used to seeing on C-Span-1: the chamber below, albeit empty of senators.  A guide was in the process of talking about the history of the Senate chamber, this particular room being used since 1859, just before the commencement of the Civil War.  We enjoyed the time sitting there and sat through the next presentation.  Then we walked around to the House side, where they went bonkers with security: we had to leave our cellphones...along with anything remotely of an electronic nature, including simple earphones...in a special room and then had to undergo ANOTHER security gauntlet, this one much more invasive than the one for entering the Capitol building.  After that, the line of visitors was gradually, again through small increments, allowed into the House of Representatives gallery looking down upon the familiar scene I see on C-Span whenever it is in session.  Yet here there was no one to present historical information about this very important place: I felt a bit bummed out about it, although I did enjoy just sitting there looking around.  Apparently, the Senate gallery wasn't originally scheduled to be open that day and we got in there without the security inspection. The heightened security might have been partially due to the fact that during that day there was a terrorism alert going on about those mail bombs that were sent to prominent Democrats and their supporters, probably accounting for the added scrutiny after we had returned to the Capitol with our passes...

The opening picture of the Senate chamber from the gallery isn't one I took, picture-taking from the gallery being banned for our visit, but is from the U.S. Senate website.  It does look like what we saw that day, though...it's funny seeing a place like this in person for the first time, yet feeling like I've been there for years. Incidentally, we were told while in the Senate gallery that the senators (along with the representatives on their side of the building) enjoy an underground subway system that transports them directly from their office buildings to the Capitol, where they can quickly access the floor for votes and speeches.  The Senate offices are on the Capitol's north side, across from Constitution Avenue, in the Russell, Dirksen, and Hart buildings while the House of Representatives offices are on the south side, across Independence Avenue in the Rayburn, Longworth, and Cannon buildings.  I wonder what it's like being a senator, taking the subway to the Senate floor from your own office building: must be pretty cool...

NSA Surveillance Reauthorization Advancing In Senate

The reauthorization for the NSA surveillance that has come under such scrutiny and controversy of late is advancing in the United States Senate (the House of Representatives has already passed it) with a cloture vote, which was just held at this writing.  The 60 votes minimum to advance the bill was assured: only 14 senators opposed it.  The champion of this small minority is Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, who, like his father in the U.S. House, Ron Paul, is an strong advocate of personal liberties and privacy from government snooping.  Recently, as I recounted in an earlier article, he went on the Senate floor and blasted the Patriot Act, which included the NSA surveillance provision.  This provision was to expire last Sunday, and Paul was able, by maneuvering through arcane Senate rules, to delay matters until it had already expired.  And now the Senate is hastily trying to put it back into law...

I'm for the NSA protecting American citizens from an obvious and dire threat, which is the infiltration of terrorists from abroad into this country as well as their recruitment of American citizens to perform their nefarious deeds from within.  My only problem with this is that, as Senator Paul mentioned during his ten-hour "filibuster" speech last week, the government can use data gathered from the collection of phone numbers and contacts to construct probability scenarios for various Americans who they think are likely to be involved in some sort of non-terrorist-related criminal activity...in other words, change the whole point of the law allowing this mass data collection in the first place.  It's been done before: the government was using anti-racketeering laws, originally aimed at organized crime, to restrict anti-abortion protests.  It took twenty years of legal fighting until the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 2006 that those laws were being misused against the protesters.  I sadly see a similar potential for misuse with this mass data collection, all denials by the senators supporting reauthorization notwithstanding...

Rand Paul Speech Suckers Me In With Its Arguments and Oratory

I'm a sucker for really good, persuasive oratory.  That's why, during the week in the late mornings and early afternoon you'll often find my television tuned in to C-Span2 (Gainesville's Cox Channel 81), which broadcasts live the United States Senate floor proceedings.  Although, as a governing body, the Senate is generally painfully slow at getting anything done, the senators often provide very illuminating information about their sides of the various issues about which they are debating.  Take the upcoming vote on the renewal of the Patriot Act...

On Wednesday afternoon, I happened to have the Senate on my TV and the floor was given to Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul to speak...and he spoke...and he spoke...and he spoke...his topic was the Patriot Act and his opposition to what he sees as its violations of our U.S. Constitution, especially of the Fourth and Ninth Amendments.  His arguments were legitimate and persuasive.  I had to stop watching after about one hour of his speech because I had to go on to work, but I was interested in how the conservative and liberal evening opinion shows would cover it. As it turned out, Paul's speech, which I was astounded to discover, went on for more than ten hours, and was an opening topic for both FoxNews's right wing Hannity show and  MSNBC's left wing The Last Word, hosted by Laurence O'Donnell.  And both parties actually were very respectful of Senator Paul and his arguments.   Today, on C-Span2, I watched as Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, nowhere nearly as elegant an orator as is Rand Paul, nevertheless presented a convincing counterargument  to the Kentucky senator's position.   I came away from the experience as I often do with these types of debates, with the conviction that I have a tendency to be swayed by good oratory, even when it contradicts common sense that I hold dear to me.  Do you, my faithful reader, want to hear my views about privacy and the Patriot Act?  That's easy enough, just let me know...I'm on Facebook, after all...

Unnecessary Homeland Security Bill Senate Filibuster

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives has passed a  Department of Homeland Security authorization and funding bill to keep the crucial department fully funded through the end of the year.  However, included in the bill is a repudiation of President Obama's executive action giving partial amnesty to illegal aliens (or "undocumented immigrants", if you want to tip-toe through political correctness land).  This bill has now been brought up before the Senate, where Democrats are filibustering it to keep it from being submitted to the floor for debate, amendments, cloture, and a final vote.  As was the case tith the recently passed Keystone XL Pipeline bill, it has no chance of being signed into law by the President, and there is no hope of overriding a presidential veto.  So I ask myself, regardless of anyone's opinion about the propriety of the Republicans' actions attaching the anti-exucutive action part to the bill, why can't it be brought up to the Senate floor for debate as the Keystone Pipeine bill was?  I'm not a Senate insider here, with my own connections and news sources.  But I have a sneaking suspicion...

Back in January when the Keystone bill was openly debated, amended, and voted on, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was absent due to an accident that he was being treated for.  I his place, Minority Whip Dick Durbin stood in and ran his party...and allowed the bill to pass through the normal legislative process.  But the minute that Reid came back, though, presto!...here comes the filibustering...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell  has proposed splitting up the Homeland Security reauthorization bill into two parts, one being a "clean" bill that funds the department without reference to Obama's recent immigration executive action, and the other a section on whether that action should be accepted or rejected.  That sounds quite reasonable to me, but I have my doubts about even that great concession on the part of the majority Senate leadership being accepted by morose and spiteful Senator Reid, sad to say.  Still, there is hope now for this important bill to be passed and the needed funding to continue.  The next day or two will tell what happens...

Oh, by the way, after I had posted this article and looked back up on its title "Unnecessary Homeland Security Bill Senate Filibuster", I realized that it could be taken two different ways.  No, the Homeland Security bill is necessary, but the filibuster against it isn't...

Surveillance Nation

There used to be an ethic in this country, at least perfunctorily adhered to, that it was a virtue to mind one's own business and live and let live.  But it seems that lately, and this may be partially due to 9/11 and a heightened sense of insecurity among the population, that as long as anyone sets foot outside their own front door, they are sure to come under scrutiny and surveillance.  It can also be argued that we have little privacy within our own homes, either, because of the unwelcome fact that practically anything we do on the Internet, on our own private computers inside our own formerly private domiciles, is subject to being traced.  And if we have cable, even what we watch on TV can be traced by the cable company; they even drive around neighborhoods with their "sweep analyzers" checking out homes to make sure no one is watching any "unauthorized" channels. But the saddest thing about it is that if I belabor this overwhelming loss of privacy and dignity to others, than I stand the risk of sounding like one of those paranoid ranters who see conspiracies everywhere and usually focus on them as being exclusively directed at themselves.  But I don't subscribe to this delusional thinking; I'm just reporting what I see.

It has come to the point with me that, regardless the circumstance I find myself in, I have a peripheral awareness of sources of surveillance around me.  I walk into a store and check for the security cameras, often well concealed.  Most traffic lights I pass beneath have their cameras pointing down into my car. My workplace is so loaded with surveillance and "scrutinizers" that it sometimes feels that even my private thoughts are being scanned.  Even at church of all places, I can't just face forward with my thoughts without someone from the praise and worship team staring down at me from the stage.  And my cell phone, with its GPS feature, can pinpoint and broadcast my exact spot on the map to "concerned" parties, whether I like it or not.

Needless to say, as I sit here at my favorite Starbucks in Magnolia Parke on 39th Avenue, where I have been a regular customer since it opened in 2000, there is a handy-dandy surveillance camera above recording me.  Just in case I'm one of those dangerous types, I suppose...   

The Manhattan Experience: Streets vs. Buildings

There is no doubt that there is an awful lot to discover and experience on the streets of Manhattan. My three-and-a-fraction days there didn’t even begin to scratch the surface. I know that I could stay there an entire year and still never have a day go by when I ran out of new sights to see. Museums, shows, restaurants, tours of some of the most famous buildings, parks, different methods of transportation, and more…

However, even if I were to exhaust all of the possibilities at street level (and including those “open” buildings like the GE Building and the Empire State Building), I STILL would only be scratching the surface of Manhattan. To understand exactly what I’m talking about, all one has to do is just stand on a Manhattan street and look up and around. At the endless ranges of skyscrapers and tall buildings. Most of which are off-limits to ordinary run-of-the-mill tourists like me. Yet this is where the overwhelming volume of the city works and lives. A very, very, private, restricted, and vast place.

How does one pick a building out at random and then go about touring it by oneself? Or is that possible without the probable locked doors, alarms, and most likely security personnel blocking my advance? And why should I even think I have a right to go inside any of these buildings anyway?

I don’t know, except I remember one particular scene in the old (1967-68) The Prisoner series starring Patrick McGoohan. The episode is The Dance of the Dead and Number Six, the prisoner played by McGoohan, is in a building fleeing for his life from an angry mob. He stops in his tracks and tries a door. It opens and he slips into a room, encountering his nemesis, Number Two. Number Two assures him that the mob won’t follow because, she says, “They lack your initiative.” Are we all so cowed that we are afraid to step up to an unmarked door somewhere and try the knob to see what’s inside? What has happened to our sense of initiative?

Speaking of that, what would happen if I just walked down a busy Manhattan street and tried one door after another, skipping stores and restaurants? Would a tee-shirt vendor or a policeman sense something suspicious and create a general alarm about my activities? What would anyone be able to say, though? Has simple curiosity become a crime in this age of privacy? And what exactly is privacy, anyway?

I live in a subdivision, in a house that is situated on a public street. People don’t have to go through shells of security to reach my residence; I’m just there, pure and simple. And my workplace is similar: just pull into the parking lot and go inside. But Manhattan? How many hoops must one jump and barriers pass before they can visit a friend at home or work?

Finally, I know quite well how intensively patrolled the streets are by the police, not to mention the extensive camera surveillance everywhere. This was borne out by the recent near-tragedy at Times Square and that failed attack. But what about that vast area within all of the buildings? Seems like it would be a completely different type of world up there to me, with its own vision of the law and how people can treat each other. Or am I just speculating too much?

Stupid Security Procedures

My renovated public library, with all of the money, time, and planning expended on it, didn't even bother to include a secure indoor book drop. After it had reopened and I first walked through the front door, there was an open basket sitting right out in front of the entrance/exit, designated for returns. But as these returned materials had not been remagnitized yet (or whatever they do to make it "bing" the alarm again), anyone walking by could reach down, pick up a returned book or CD, and just walk right on through the exit with them without any alarms going off. And the patron who had checked them out would eventually be charged for them! I told one of the librarians about this flaw, and the next time I went in the basket had been moved to be part of the staff counter area and in a better spot. But that should have been a no-brainer to begin with!

In past years, I have been in two completely different situations where I would regularly enter (different) hospitals from the back or side entrance and find myself walking down unguarded corridors with access (if I had wanted) to patients in their rooms. In other words, there was no security. My business was always legitimate, but others had no way of knowing that! Yet in each of these hospitals, the main entrance was painstakingly guarded, in the bigger hospital by a cast of what looked like secret service agents swarming around eyeballing and challenging everyone. Yet in that same hospital anyone could come and go with impunity from an easily-accessible side entrance without any security presence whatsoever.

I know someone who works at a place that is going all-out to bolster up their security. The entrance door has a lock needing a combination to enter. A company is on contract to construct two more outer layers of security, including a camera that takes in whoever enters the facility. For that one entrance. The only problem is that there is another entrance, easily accessible and visible from the open public street and through which any Tom, Dick, or Osama can just pull over and enter unchallenged. This friend of mine is beside himself about the foolishness of this situation, but it doesn't surprise me at all.

The French were notorious for their security lapses against the Germans last century, first with the Germans circumventing their heavy border fortifications by simply going around through neutral Belgium in World War I and then with their lack of defenses in the supposedly impregnable Ardennes (which the Germans obliged by pouring their forces through) in World War II, although France had gone to great lengths to build the supposedly impassable Maginot Line between the wars.

Whether on a grand or a small scale, a security system can't be piecemeal, nor can assumptions be made concerning what a potential adversary will or won't do. But it happens all the time anyway.

Then again, there was that scene in the first James Bond flick Doctor No. Supervillain and supergenius Doctor No has captured our hero, who is stuck in a jail cell. He looks up and, lo and behold, there is a gigantic air vent in the wall above him. He simply neutralizes the electric charge on it, kicks out the cover, climbs in, and goes on to kick Mr. Supergenius's butt! Which brought me to the conclusion that the smarter people think they are, the dumber they really are when it comes to security!

ID Check

One of the problems I've heard that our national intelligence services have in infiltrating terrorist cells is that they are usually very small and intimate, as well as cut off from each other. The members don't protect the security of the cells by wearing identification badges on their shirts; they simply recognize each other by sight and voice. But for domestic U.S. citizens, going about on their daily work business, we've gone "ID Crazy". Just take where I work.

I suppose that, if there were any place in which security measures are justified, then the U.S. Postal Service would be high on the list. It has suffered from highly-publicized attacks of violence in the past, as well as the anthrax terrorist attack in 2001 that killed some of its employees. So I'm all in favor of security. But the way they are trying to accomplish this leaves me a little confused. Take the identification check, for example.

On a regular basis, floor supervisors are required to walk around the workroom floor and check to make sure that all employees under their authority are sporting their own official (with picture) ID badge. The supervisors go around with a clipboard and check off names as they do this. This is supposed to be a security-enhancing procedure. But how? In doing this, the supervisor is only checking people that (s)he already recognizes as being legitimate employees, not suspicious outsiders. And the different floor supervisors and managers all have a pretty basic understanding about who is supposed to be there and who isn't. By recognition, not by badges. When a "stranger" (such as an outside auditor) does make an appearance on the workroom floor, heads turns everywhere, and a "buzz" goes around, through employees and their supervisors, regarding the "strange" presence. There is nothing official about this; rather, it is the same type of security sense that those subversive cells use to keep out intruders. It is much, much more sophisticated and difficult to crack than the crude official methods that management concocts.

Conversely, if a person who was unfamiliar to anyone did happen to show up wearing an "official" badge, this would in itself do little to alleviate concern about his/her presence there. That individual would stick out like a sore thumb!

There is also a segment to this argument regarding the actual security of entrances, and how restricted the access to the building's interior really is. But discretion tells me that perhaps this blog isn't a very appropriate forum in which to discuss it. That is regrettable, because actual entry to the facilities is much more important within the discussion of security than inane ID badge checks.