But you knew the "domestic" threat was the real one all along...

Domestic threats biggest Olympic security concern: expert

Last Updated: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 | 10:48 AM PT CBC News

A University of Calgary expert in modern terrorism says small disruptions by domestic groups are the most likely security threat to the upcoming 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, but organizational issues are also a critical concern.

Vancouver is set to capture the world's attention for 16 days when the Olympic Winter Games begin later this month. But with that global spotlight comes some of the world's biggest problems and a heightened risk of terrorist attacks, according to Michael Zekulin, a PhD candidate researching contemporary terrorism in the U of C's political science department.

"In today's world, the Olympic Games represent a very real target for terrorism. It provides groups with the potential for large casualties and immediate global attention," said Zekulin.

"While the likelihood of a sophisticated, large-scale attack carried out by an international group like al-Qaeda is unlikely, disruption to the Games by domestic groups remains a possibility," he said in a statement released on Tuesday morning.

Anti-Olympic protesters have already been a thorn in the side of Olympic torch relay organizers, and have promised to disrupt the Games when they open in Vancouver on Feb 12.

"Organizers trying to prevent … attacks are faced with a logistical nightmare including countless potential targets, thousands of people involved and limited resources," said Zekulin.

Organization headaches

Olympic organizers also face challenges trying to secure not only the event sites located in Vancouver and Whistler, but also 125 kilometres of the Sea-to-Sky Highway connecting the two areas.

The $1-billion security plan for the Games will also be challenged by organizational and co-ordination issues because of the large number of agencies coming together for the 16-day event.

The massive effort led by the RCMP involves the Canadian military, several local police forces, border security forces, as well as international support from countries like the U.S. and military partnerships like NORAD.

"There's a real potential that should serious issues present themselves, people and agencies may start acting on their own instead of in a co-ordinated fashion," said Zekulin.

While volunteers traditionally add to the security of the Games by providing ears and eyes on the ground, Vancouver organizers might face challenges if some of those 25,000 volunteer stop showing up for their shifts, as has been the case in previous Games, he said.

Cameras aimed at protesters, not terrorists

The nearly 1,000 surveillance cameras in place for the Winter Olympics won't do much to deter a terrorist attack and are really just useful for zeroing in on protesters and hooligans, says Andre Gerolymatos, a Simon Fraser University history professor with an interest in security issues.

"They will be useful in terms of catching potential troublemakers, vandals, people selling dope on the street, but in terms of terrorists, in a way they are playing into their hands — the terrorist will simply look into the camera and blow himself up," said Gerolymatos.

He said cameras are overrated because they can only record events, and it would be better to have more police and soldiers on the streets where they could react to trouble, Gerolymatos told CBC News.

***

A billion dollars - that will have to be paid back.
A thousand cameras - that will not be turned off or taken away when this is over.
That's the real Olympic legacy for us.

... that I will post some sex-and-the-Olympics related news story.

Sex and the Olympics: The world brings its vice to Vancouver
Influx of visitors sees huge rise in demand for strippers, escorts

By Ethan Baron, The Province January 31, 2010

Let the sex games begin. Olympic fever is taking hold in Metro Vancouver's sex industry, with businesses and workers preparing to welcome a deluge of eager visitors.

One purveyor of sex for sale is seeking to entice new prostitutes with promises of tens of thousands of dollars. Vancouver's most prominent strip club is planning Olympic-themed decorations, but keeping them secret for fear of a clampdown by Olympics authorities. And one Metro Vancouver escort service is hiring dozens of women from across the country for the Games -- and is already catering to Olympics-related demand.

( Read more... )

Italics mine - the VANOC executives and security people, the only ones who will make significant money off this horrible circus, will patronize the "high-class foxes", while everyone else makes do with the disruptions (and fear that the Olympic bylaw police will abarge in and tell them to take down their brand-infringing decorations).

Sigh. Just a few more weeks and it will be all over, then we can look forward to paying for the party for the next 25 years....

No snow at Olympic site leaves VANOC scrambling
Contingency plan includes dumping snow from helicopters

Last Updated: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 | 7:52 PM ET The Canadian Press

Winter Games officials have given up on Mother Nature and are planning to truck in snow for the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events at Cypress Mountain on Vancouver's North Shore.

The Vancouver Olympic organizing committee (known as VANOC) says the forecast suggests there won't be any new snow falling before the Games kick off Feb. 12, and they won't be able to make enough in time for the skiing and snowboarding competitions.

"We are planning that we will not have snow," said Cathy Priestner Allinger, executive vice-president of sport and Games operations for VANOC.

Contingency plans are now being rolled out. They include using straw and wood in place of snow to build up the courses. Snow will then be brought in to layer over the straw and wood to build the course.

But officials believe there is enough snow elsewhere on the mountain, and they will use trucks, snow cats and, if necessary, helicopters to move snow to the event sites, said Priestner Allinger.

[glib organizer smarmspeak snipped]

Mild temperatures and heavy rains earlier this month forced officials to close the mountain ahead of schedule as snow gave way to mud.

Olympic officials have said they've been stockpiling real and artificial snow for months, just in case the region's temperate rainforest climate refused to co-operate.

***

[assumes dramatic commercial voiceover voice]
FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY FEBRUARY TWELFTH
WE'RE GONNA TURN CYPRESS MOUNTAIN INTO A GIANT MUUUUUUD PIIIIT
SEE THE HURTLING SNOWBOARD ACTION AS THE ATHLETES TUMBLE ASS OVER TEAKETTLE
FEEL THE COLD AND DAMP WORK INTO YOUR BONES WHILE YOU SINK INTO THE GROUND
BRING YOUR VERY BEST RUBBER BOOTS
CAUSE IT'S GONNA BE {echo effect} MUDDY MUDDY MUDDYYYYYY....

...honestly, what a friggin' circus.

I don't know why I keep following this story, it's just one more fillip of choking nonsense attached to this unsavoury and unavoidable jock-sniff... only eight months to go....

2010 Games won't bring surge of sex trafficking: study
Last Updated: Thursday, June 11, 2009 | 9:54 PM PT
CBC News

Contrary to common assumptions, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games will not result in a surge of sex trafficking in the city, a new study suggests.

The study released Thursday examined an array of international sporting events such as the Olympics and World Cup soccer games.

The findings suggest there is no evidence the number of sex workers and trafficking victims increased dramatically in those locations during the events.

"In relation to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, public statements have been made which project an alarming increase in this human trafficking," the study says.

"These claims are inconsistent with the evidence in this research document, that trafficking and mega-events are not linked."

The study was commissioned by the Sex Industry Worker Safety Action Group — a Vancouver police initiative established in 2007 that has involved several community groups active in the city's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. It was paid for with a provincial government grant and conducted by Frontline Consulting.

Ten Olympic host cities were studied, and researchers interviewed police, sex-trade workers and community service leaders, as well as reviewed a couple of hundred media articles, academic journals, government reports and relevant websites.

They found that sex trafficking generally did not increase during these previous sporting events for a number of reasons, including heightened awareness and enforcement by police of trafficking laws.

The study recommends that the 2010 Games should be used as an opportunity for all levels of government to educate the public about human trafficking for sexual purposes.

"Combatting trafficking for sexual exploitation is a federal and provincial government priority, yet no broad-based public awareness campaigns have been developed on these issues," it says.

"Other jurisdictions have used mega sport events as an opportunity to create such campaigns, which are considered to have played an important public education role above and beyond an immediate deterrence of trafficking."

The study also suggests that Canadian Forces, RCMP and other police and security forces be trained in identifying trafficking and exploitation and develop standards for referrals of such cases.

Tamara O'Doherty, chair of the Sex Industry Worker Safety Action Group, said there is a risk that security and enforcement measures put in place for the Games could have a negative impact on the prostitutes who already call the place home.

"If anything, we found that the conflation of sex work and trafficking can result in policy and enforcement responses that negatively affect the lives of sex workers and victims of trafficking," she said Thursday.

Karen Mirsky of the Pivot Legal Society said sex workers would become more vulnerable to violence if they were forced to move by street closures and security.

Vancouver police said they will help ensure prevention, early detection and intervention of human sex trafficking prior to the Winter Games next year.

"Sex industry workers deserve to live as safely as anyone else in Vancouver," Insp. John de Haas said Thursday.

"The VPD [Vancouver Police Department] is committed to working with industry and community organizations to keep everyone safe."

Gee, everyone seems worried about an influx of furrin hoo-ers to this jock-o-rama circle-jerk we are pleased to call "2010".

Or, if you're Stockwell Day, ostentatiously not worried: see earlier entry http://ltmurnau.livejournal.com/176153.html

Though I would think the amount of money involved in moving THOUSANDS of women into Vancouver, housing and feeding them, and then moving them back out again after 10-12 days would not make this a very profitable venture.

Again, THOUSANDS of them - how many people are supposed to turn up to this boondoggle anyway? And how many of them, how often, will have the need or opportunity to engage a prostitute (above and beyond the generous supply already at work in Couverville....)? And in the final analysis, aren't these goombahs all in town to see someone slide rapidly down a hill, or slide rapidly across a sheet of ice, or something, and not to sample the exotic delights of Stefania the Not-Very-Convincing Trannie?

Again, it's interesting to see how everyone, in talking about 2010, automatically begins to overstate its probable impact on whatever else it is they are talking about - traffic, restaurants, climate, sex....

Act now to counter Olympic sex tourism, group urges

Lori Culbert, Canwest News Service
Published: Thursday, May 29, 2008

Thousands of sex-trade workers will be trafficked into Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics, and so British Columbia must take action now to halt an increase in sex tourism, a group of international transition-house workers warned yesterday.

The group, in Vancouver for a conference, is calling on governments to provide more support for women working the streets. However, its members are opposed to a fledgling initiative to create a legal brothel in time for the Winter Games.

Suzanne Koepplinger, executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center, said there is anecdotal evidence from social service agencies in Salt Lake City that many sex-trade workers were imported into Utah for the 2006 winter Olympics.

She said no studies were done to prove exactly how many, but she argued the same observations were made by similar agencies during the 2004 Olympics in Athens and the 2006 soccer World Cup in Germany.

( Read more... )

Y'know, sometimes I don't even know where to begin with some stories, like f'rinstance:

- what could have prompted the minister to feel he had to make a public statement on this in the first place, or
- what earthly difference it might make to anyone besides the prostitutes and their customers, or
- pointing out that our border guards can't keep out real criminals, let alone "them furrin hoo-ers" (I mean, this is hardly supportive of the principles of international free trade), or
- ignoring the blatantly obvious metaphor of who are the biggest set of prostitutes in this whole mess - at least in this case some working-class people get a bit of money out of this jock-sniff gone sordidly and horribly wrong....


Foreign prostitutes won't flock to Vancouver Games: Day

Last Updated: Thursday, February 7, 2008 | 12:24 PM ET
The Canadian Press

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Thursday he doesn't foresee foreign prostitutes descending on the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Day said major events such as the Olympics or soccer's World Cup traditionally have been a magnet for prostitutes and others out to make a buck from big crowds.

But the minister said stringent security at the Canadian border is likely to deter such unwanted foreign visitors.

While there's likely to be an influx of Canadian prostitutes to the area, Day says tighter policing will help control that, too.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson is brushing off suggestions that legal brothels would be a good method of protecting vulnerable prostitutes in Canada.

He says the government has no intention of legalizing prostitution.