US Marines invade Oakland, next month
I'd like to tie a few recurring Cyberia-L threads in with the planned
invasion of San Francisco (actually Oakland and Alameda) by the US Marines
next month. According to news reports this is the first military
"invasion" exercise of an American city during peacetime. Although
some invasions of smaller urban units like the Citadel have taken place.
Ok, my questions/comments.
Since the San Francisco bay area is one of the most "wired" areas
in the country/world, is there any problems with the public setting
up web cameras and web sites to broadcast the tactics used by the
US Marines on the world-wide Internet. Would broadcasting the
Marines tactics be like putting up worst-case chemical information
or lists of abortion doctors on the web, and giving a "roadmap" to
terrorists on the tactics the US Military intends to use in urban
warfare?
In wartime, there may be official censoring, but this is a
peacetime exercise conducted in public.
In an actual invasion of a foreign city, US law wouldn't apply
to the citizen of the foreign city anyway, so a realistic exercise
has to assume civilians are filming and broadcasting the operation
(e.g. the SEAL's coming ashore in Somolia broadcast live by a number
of non-US news services).
Part of the exercise involves marines in civilian clothes trying out
some of their new electronic gear in the downtown San Francisco financial
district. In one sense, this may be the best area to do that, because
of the number of people walking around the streets of San Francisco with
unusual high-tech gear, the marines won't stand out. Someone walking
down the street with a GPS tracker doesn't raise an eyebrow in SF.
The downtown San Francisco financial district is ground zero for
lots of weird interference from all sorts of stuff. But is the
military gear FCC compliant for operation in a civilian area? If
one of the major financial district computers goes haywire, and
the marines just happen to be operating some piece of military
high-tech equipment nearby, could the US Military be held legally
responsible if their exercise contributed to the problem?
Will the FCC be standing by to check up on the Marines? The
San Francisco financial district may not have as much money moving
through it as New York, but it is still a sizable chunk of change.
Even a minor disruption in a significant computer system can have
an impact. I assume the marines won't be using any HERF guns
in the area :-)
And finally, a low-tech question (its amazing how many high-tech
firewalls I can break using low-tech means).
Since the US Marines are going to be walking around with a lot of
cool gear, but the newspapers have already reported their weapons
will loaded with blanks, how does the US Military prevent their solders
from getting mugged on the rough streets of Oakland? Local gangs
might think those M-16's would go nicely with the rest of their weapon
collections.
There are a number of fairly sophisticated high-tech gangs that
have been hitting companies in the San Francisco and Silcon Valley
area for years. So its not really too far fetched.
What, if any, authority does the US Military have during peacetime
for exercises in civilian areas? Does have a solder need to call
9-1-1 and wait for the local police. (e.g. the May 1997 shooting
by a Marine on a drug patrol of a Texas sheep herder). Under
an earlier plan, when the marines were invading the Presido, the
invading forces were to be under orders not to step on the flowers
on the Presido grounds. But it was unclear, what if any steps
civilians could take to prevent the marines from stepping on the
flowers, e.g. putting a fence up, standing guard and yelling at
marines to stay out, using a garden hose to wet down any marines
that came too close to the flower beds.
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Affiliation given for identification not representation
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