These people make me sick. He’s exactly the same as the jerks that try to sneak guns and box cutters onto planes just to embarrass security people at airports. The difference is, he did it to the President of the United States and the Queen of England.
Sooner or later the government is going to get the shits of these little games. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to find that admission to a White House tour, or prior to boarding a plane, in five years or so requires you to turn in your clothes for burning, a full body MRI, and an interrogation. All because people like this think they’re clever. :rolleyes:
I think these people are slime. I think they should be charged as terrorists and put away for a long time. Nothing they do serves the public interest, and in fact hurts the public by making the security people have to tighten up the security even more, leading to five hour waits for the metal detectors at airports and the like. They prove that people simply can’t be trusted to do the right thing.
I hope the Queen puts this guy in the Tower, for a long time.
Or, they can keep playing their games and making a mockery of the entire security system no matter how draconian it gets (and believe me, it’s always possible to circumvent systems like airport security), that people give it up as useless and go back to non-hassle forms of security.
You’ll also find she’s Queen of Australia, and Canada, and Jamaica, and New Zealand - and guess what else, England, Scotland, and Wales. Yeah, Yeah - you can argue the semantics but the bottom line is this - you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If England reserves the right to compete at the World Cup with Scotland and Ireland and Wales as separate countries - then by extension - there’s a Queen of England as much as there is a Queen of the Commonwealth, or the United Kingdom.
Anyway - getting back to Airman’s Opening Post - oh well, what can I say? There are fucknuckle’s everywhere. The real challenge in life is to somehow invent a foolproof screening mechanism which can filter the dickheads of this world. Although, it has to be said, my all time fave whacko story involving an intruder and the Queen was from 1982 when some deranged guy somehow snuck into the Queen’s bedroom and talked to her for about 15 minutes before she coud alert security. If memory serves me correctly, at the time the single greatest stink which came out of that incident was the realisation that she doesn’t sleep with her husband in the same quarters anymore - and I dare say rarely since.
Unlike the wirecutter smugglers and the like, this was not illegal. All this fellow did was got a job for a while, for which he got paid. While I would love for this activity to be outlawed, I appreciate that it is effectively what stops the human race starving to death.
I can’t work up any rage at anyone who can breach “security” - seems to me they provide a valuable service. In the last 30 years, I’ve spent a lot of time on a lot of military bases, and for the most part, the security is a joke.
I have a barcode sticker on my van window and a base sticker on the windshield and I stop to show the guard my ID. Never once has a guard looked to see if anyone is crouched in the back of my van - not even during the high security conditions. And if I used a boat, there are lots of places I could land on the river side of the base and get onboard undetected.
As far as I can see, “security” is an illusion. Anyone bound and determined to undermine it can do so fairly easily.
Did anyone hear about al Qaeda’s idea for killing 100,000 people in the USA? Good morning. “President Cheney,” OTOH, they don’t want. He’s like an insurance policy for the Pres.
British eccentrics are another problem entirely. Just give them some women’s underwear.
I think you’re missing the point of this admittedly sensationalist journo stunt, Airman. To me, it goes to show that you can be at danger despite bringing SAM-packing limos, Uzi-sporting security guards with carte blanche to fire in large crowds, and despite wanting to close down central London for 3 days.
Indeed, even a head of state can be at danger whilst on their own premises, without the threat coming from outside. That is the point, and it is a valid one. There really is no point in desiring all sorts of draconian additional security measures (like the ones mentioned above), when even the most basic ones aren’t met by your hosts.
Your anger should be directed at Buckingham Palace security, not at the journalist who brought the problem forward.
You know, what bothers me the most about this, and why I think he should be charged as a terrorist, is that he’s really no different from the real terrorists except for the fact that his jacket wasn’t made out of Semtex. He could have blown the Queen and the President away with no particular problem.
Sorry, Airman, but this dog won’t hunt. As annoying as you might find the “gotcha” style of this news article, the plain truth is that a man with fraudulent credentials was employed by the Palace–just be grateful he was merely a reporter from a down-market tabloid.
Pointing out the flaws in security is a good thing. Stifling the kid who says the emperor has no clothes does nothing to cover up the imperial backside.
But he didn’t, which makes him, errrr, watchamacallit, oh yeah, “not a fucking terrorist by any bloody stretch of the imagination”, I believe the term is.
Treat someone as a terrorist because he demonstrated a security leak, therefore preventing the bad guys from abusing said leak? WTF?
I’m with Coldfire. The only way to test security (without anyone dieing) is to actually, I don’t know, test it. If reporters, nutjobs, and the military don’t test it and just go through life trusting that it will work, when the actual terrorists come to test it, they won’t see it coming.
Yes, I agree that the press especially can be too sensational about the whole deal, and they kind of creep me out about it even, but it’s still better that they show a hole than that we go back to the whole security through obscurity thing that we know doesn’t work.
Last time I checked nations or royal domains weren’t defined by their football team.
Her official title: Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.
No mention of England anywhere, because England, like Scotland & Wales, is not a separate sovereign state.
By your argument she’s also Queen of Wales, Queen of London, Queen of Essex, Queen of Penny Lane and Queen of Melbourne. All technically correct, but not her title.
She gets to go by the name “Queen Of England” as long as we can refer to the President of Texas.