public building stupidity

TRX
09-16-2010

After 2001 both the Little Rock and Pulaski County courthouses implemented "security", which basically means hassling people who have legitimate business there. They both have broad frontages and imposing entrance doors, but they're chained shut. I guess they were never made to be locked. Instead, make you wander around the building trying locked doors until you find whichever side or back door actually lets you in. Then you go through a metal detector and a security station. The county courthouse not only took down its sign, but they removed the street signs and building numbers for a couple of blocks in each direction, which made it hard to find it the first time I was there.

The local police station "went armadillo" back in the '80s. Ordinary town of 30,000, 12 sworn officers, not exactly a high crime area. Security cameras went up outside (long before they put them inside), remote-locked steel doors everywhere inside the building. When you go in the front door you're in a vestibule. There are some clerks on the other side of a 1/2 inch thick glass partition that has a 2" shouting hole about 7 feet up. You have to bang on the glass until they bother to notice you, then use sign language. All the visible security is set up to prevent people from breaking *in* to the building.

Just got off the phone with a buddy in Los Angeles. He was standing in line outside one of the courthouses there. Someone had decided the courthouse was "full", so they had security guards preventing people from entering the building unless someone else left first. Must be nice if you have an appointment or a court appearance. The PDRC is starting to sound very Soviet nowadays.

I've already balked at office buildings where they wanted a photo ID and signature before they'd let anyone in. The people upstairs thought I was unreasonable when I made someone come down and sign me in. If I wanted to put up with that kind of crap I've move to Commiefornia.

I used to wonder about the old guys and their thousand-yard stare, but now I'm starting to feel a lot like Walt Kowalski in "Gran Torino." My country evaporated while I wasn't looking, and "the future" turned out to be a shithole.

TRX
09-16-2010

Well, it only seems to be Little Rock/Pulaski County so far. The Lonoke County Courthouse has all its doors open, and there's usually a little old lady at the reception desk to point you in the right direction when you get there. It was built in the 1920s, before the Rural Electrification Program, and still had the gas pipes and mantles last time I was there.

Back at the Pulaski County Courthouse, I set the metal detector off every time. The guard never bothers to look up. At the city courthouse I get the third degree, had to remove my glasses and belt last time. "Yes, I have a couple of pounds of steel rod in my left leg." So they wave a wand, yep, it's the left leg, and let me put my belt and glasses back on and gimp off down the hall. They never bothered to check *what* was down my left pants leg; for all they knew I could've had anything down there instead of $20,000 worth of orthopedic reconstruction. With some ghetto homeboy flappy pants I could probably gimp through with a folded AK-47 taped to my leg...

By the way, wheelchairs roll through without any inspection or hassle.

Bruce Schneier calls this sort of thing "security theater"; it doesn't *do* anything, but it gives the appearance that something is being done. People who should know better defend it wholeheartedly. Maybe they'll change their tunes when they add the anal probes... after all, it's for their safety, no telling what might be stuck up there.

You know all the crap you go through to take a commercial airline flight? If you have a private or charter flight, you just walk right by and out to your plane. Baa, sheeple. Baa! Baaa!