I stopped in at the press center at the G-20 summit yesterday to reserve space at one of the tables. There are information people all over the place so I asked a woman if it would be safe for me to leave my laptop during the day. "I doubt it," she said, "from what I understand anyone who applied for a press credential got one, so this place would not be safe to leave anything of value".
Really? Anyone who applied got a credential? That explains how I got mine.
The world press seemed to arrive yesterday for the event. Late last night we were driving around the largely empty streets of Pittsburgh watching as hundred of workers and at least as many police were setting up embankments and closing off entire stretches of the the downtown corridor. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. But rest assured, we flashed our press passes and police would allow us to drive right up to the convention center, never searching the car, looking at any other sort of ID or really anything that could be called security.
The other interesting non-secure thing? About 11 PM last night we had a small caravan of press, a black jeep and my black sedan driving on a bus only road downtown. Police were literally on every street corner, usually 5 or more officers. At one point, about 2 blocks from the convention center, the jeep in front of me pulled over and stopped, so I pulled in behind them. We all go out, blocking the street and everyone began making phone calls. The police were less than 20 feet away and yet not a single officer questioned these unknown people, in unknown cars, stopping on a bus only road and everyone exiting the vehicles.
So much for securing the perimeter.
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