The bigggest threats: "Fixated people", Yemen's al Qaida Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Real IRA.
To boost the surveillance offered by the city's thousands of CCTV cameras, three patrol helicopters with high-definition video cameras will circle above the city. And, given Westminster Abbey's proximity to the Thames, contingencies will have been made for Mumbai-style attacks launched from the river. As for the VIP list, which includes 50 heads of state, the Met's Owens said they'll have the added security of up to 80 "close-protection units" - security speak for highly trained teams of bodyguards to escort them around the city.
They'll also be using "pre-emptive policing."
Other officers and soldiers will be in the procession but most of the police will be in the background in rapid response squads that can head to any area where there is trouble, or patrolling the streets along and around the procession route.
The latter groups will use random stop-and-searches, closed-circuit television cameras and "pre-emptive policing" to quash any perceived security threats.
At a court hearing in one of my federal cases last week, one of the state-local gang task force agents mentioned to the prosecutor that he was going to London to provide security for the "procession." If figures, if that's the group that will doing the pre-emptive policing. For those who say these tactics would never fly here, I suspect they are done all the time.
Powers included in pre-emptive policing allow officers to detain anyone on terror charges if they believe he or she poses a threat, even if the officers do not have hard evidence. former CIA agent Mike Baker told Fox News last week those detentions would never be allowed here. Really? What about the hundreds of Muslim men rounded up after 9/11 and detained for months on material witness warrants? Roadblocks and checkpoints? We do them routinely for DUI's. Stop and Search, they do those daily even without a threat. They just trick you into consenting to the search
In case you haven't noticed, between facial recognition technology, gigpan cameras, wiretapping, GPS, cell phone data collection, etc., we already live in a police state. Britain's got nothing on us.
Here's the wedding schedule for April 29. More security photos here.
I'm glad no one invited me. Unless the invitation came with private air travel and a stay at a very secure 5 star hotel, I'd have taken a pass. I can see all I want on TV.
