The Hamilton Spectator February 2, 2002
It's the Super Security Bowl
By Joan Walters
Getting to sit in the stands of America's most-watched television spectacle tomorrow will be tougher than entering the White House. Security for the Super Bowl in New Orleans -- a possible target for terrorism -- is so unprecedented that fans are being urged to bring only tickets and the clothes on their backs.
"It's extraordinarily important nothing happen at this event," says John Pike, director of Global Security, a defence policy think-tank in Washington.
"The whole point of terrorism is to get on TV. The Super Bowl is among the most visible media events. It's an ideal target for that reason, and for what it symbolizes." The Super Bowl is traditionally the best show annually of U.S. sports, corporate and social culture -- everything American rolled into one big burst of loud, fast and flashy.
This year, it also has become a tribute to the honour and bravery of terrorism victims across the U.S.
The NFL replaced the game's logo -- a New Orleans scene -- with a patriotic stars-and-stripes motif, and a chorus of police, firefighters, emergency workers and U.S. soldiers will sing together at the game.
"The Super Bowl, simply, is in the same category as the World Trade Center," says Reid Morden, former head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
"It's a symbol of some of the things that are close to America's heart."
Securing the game, expected to have a television audience of 130 million, involves 48 federal, state and local agencies charged with the safety of the entire city, not just the Superdome itself.
Approximately 70,000 fans will be in the stadium, and at least 30,000 in the streets, the largest U.S. gathering since Sept. 11.
The presence of former president George Bush, the possible attendance of President George W. Bush and a worldwide television audience make an inviting target.
"It's irresistible for targeting," says security expert Walter Purdy of the Terrorism Research Center in Fairfax, Va. "But this is probably going to have the most comprehensive security of any event in U.S. history."
This week's chilling warning from U.S. government officials of possible renewed attacks has driven security into hyper-drive in New Orleans.
Combat aircraft -- likely fighter jets and attack helicopters -- will secure the no-fly airspace overhead, with Coast Guard cutters on the riverfront nearby.
Sharpshooters on roofs and undercover operatives in the stands are part of a $6-million US team of more than 2,000 which includes the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, National Guard, Federal Emergency Measures Agency and medical, fire and disaster crews.
Behind the scenes, drills for preparedness have been under way for months, including scenarios for dealing with explosions, the release of toxins and the poisoning of the air.
Even a portion of the U.S.'s emergency drug stockpile, to combat everything from anthrax to mustard gas, has been readied by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
But by tomorrow, the most visible element of the massive security will be the measures fans run up against as they arrive for the game.
The 70,000 spectators -- if that many actually make it through three blocks of police and military cordons around the Superdome -- can be subject to pat-down searches, confiscation of belongings, interrogation, X-rays and detector dogs.
And nobody will get to the Superdome in the limousines which usually ferry sports, politics and entertainment figures directly to the door. The stadium is encircled by high fencing and concrete barriers to foil renegade explosive-carrying cars.
"Even Paul Tagliabue is walking," said National Football League vice-president Jim Steeg. "If the NFL commissioner is walking, everybody's walking."
The league has pleaded with fans to bring as little as possible, and to leave cellphones, pagers and electronic devices at home. Those items will be taken apart and thoroughly examined, if allowed at all.
The league has also banned a long list of objects normally carried into games.
Frisbees, beach balls, noisemakers, bottles, cans, umbrellas, coolers, backpacks, binocular and camera cases and all containers are taboo. Camcorders, cameras with long lenses and baby paraphernalia are also nixed.
Even the big, foam, No. 1 fan fingers of traditional game-goers are banned.
It's the first time in U.S. history a sporting match has been designated a national special security event -- a high-risk category normally applied only to presidential inaugurations or the UN.
But nothing has been normal in the United States since Sept. 11 and Super Bowl security has been placed, for the first time, in the hands of the Secret Service, the agency also responsible for the Salt Lake City Olympics.
"We're at war, and we've already seen an attack in this country," said Michael James, Secret Service chief for New Orleans. "We will use every asset the federal government has available."
Stephen Newman, political science professor at York University in Toronto, says security experts understand the staggering dimensions of the event.
"That's why they're worried somebody might attempt to commit a terrorist act, precisely because so many people are watching, precisely because these events loom so large in the public imagination."
New Orleans has hosted eight previous Super Bowls and even lived with the fallout of a fictional terrorist attack.
In Black Sunday, the 1977 thriller movie, a terrorist cell threatens to kill fans at the city's Super Bowl from a blimp loaded with thousands of darts.
There is no blimp for this game, and little threat of being taken completely by surprise. But there is the added tension of extra tourists in New Orleans for the traditional Mardi Gras.
Super Bowl weekend intersects for the first time ever with the city's famous pre-Lenten festival, which draws thousands to the nearby French Quarter. Streets are crowded with masked party-goers, opening up the possibility of more security nightmares.
The security team must protect not only the site of the Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and St. Louis Rams but also surrounding streets, hotels, practice facilities and the international media headquarters at a nearby convention centre.
And they must do it in the knowledge that the U.S.'s most senior security officials have put the country on extended high alert.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned Thursday that the United States faces terrorist surprises "vastly more deadly" than the attacks on Washington and New York that killed more than 2,900.
FBI Director Robert Mueller is warning that "sleeper cells" of terrorists could be lurking in the United States, waiting for orders to attack.
And published reports indicate that intelligence agencies issued an alert within the past two weeks warning that Islamic militants planned a major attack, with a nuclear facility as one possible target.
"They clearly have good plans in place to deal with some types of threats," says Pike, the security expert in Washington, D.C. "But there are other types of threats we all assume no one can deal with."
What happens, for instance, "if some guys rent an apartment or a warehouse ahead of time, a couple of miles away, then bring in mortars," Pike worries.
"Then at an appropriate moment they take the mortars to the roof. A good mortar team can get half a dozen shells in the air before the first one lands. If those perpetrators are not discovered in advance, security measures taken at a stadium would not address that."
Morden, the former CSIS head, isn't convinced the security establishment has a "100 per cent solution" for preventing terrorism attacks.
"The concentration of people at the Super Bowl not only presents a target, it also provides lots of opportunity for people to slip underneath the security screen," says Morden, now chair of Corporate Intelligence for KPMG.
"The technology is sufficiently good that in the Super Bowl stadium, some of the really high-end biometric technology will be able to pick a person out on the 35 yard line, 10 rows up, and say 'That's a well-known terrorist,'" Morden said.
"But if there was one lesson to be drawn from the terrorist attacks in the U.S., it's that it's inherently very dangerous to let yourself be dazzled by the technology. It's really more about being out there talking to people, picking up information, having sources."
Juliette Kayyem, a terrorism expert based at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., agrees the problem may be pouring so much money and time into major events, rather than working on a wider front to disrupt terrorists' ability to attack.
"We are incredibly good at focusing in on the high-profile events -- the Super Bowl, the Olympics," she says. "We know how to prevent that. That's not really what concerns me. It's waking up on a morning like Sept. 11 and feeling the shock of something you couldn't have prepared for."
Purdy, of the Terrorism Research Center in Fairfax, Va., says security forces need to concentrate on "breaking the links in the chain that terrorists must put together before they attack."
"If you look at Sept. 11, those terrorists had to do hundreds and hundreds of things before successfully carrying out their plan, including logistical supports, planning, the money, their supplies," Purdy said.
But tomorrow, the NFL is emphasizing fan enjoyment, not the security lockdown they've put in place.
"The most important thing for people to know is that this will be one of the safest sporting events ever," said Milton Ahlerich, a former FBI agent who is the NFL's vice-president of security. "Come and have a good time, it's the Super Bowl. I hope people don't get focused on security."
Copyright 2002 Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd.
