Dear B.K. DeLong,

Excellent investigation into the DNC (in)security situation. It never fails to amaze me how "good enough for government work" extends to the lack of concern for the safety and security of the people who make the democratic institutions of our government function.

Of course, if anything happens the zealot perps will get away with it and those who warned of the blatant weaknesses will be punished for their honesty. Just ask the Thiokol scientists about O rings.

Take care,

Collin Baber

Dear B.K. DeLong,

As Cryptome is being questioned by DHS about the upcoming DNC, it cannot be helped but to paste the following quote:

"I have examined Man's wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine. The peasant I tempt today eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of ten thousand years ago; and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score of weeks. But when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathers far behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons."

The Devil speaking in Don Juan in Hell, Act III of Man and Superman
by George Bernard Shaw, 1902.

I was about to send my friends the URL of your DNC security expose' when I saw that you had posted the security radio frequencies. What the hell? IMHO a major strength of democracy is a citizen's freedom to complain loud and long about what needs fixing -- and I could justify all the rest of your comments are an excellent example -- but posting the frequencies in a time like this seems to offer little benefit and makes life noticeably easier for the nefarious sorts you claim to be warning about.

Howie Goodell

Howie -

As one UMasser to another, I thought about that before I linked to it, (and keep in mind I did not post them, I merely linked to them), however a) I know they're watching my blog at this point and hopefully they're not stupid enough to put "top secret information" out over the radio unencrypted, b) Journalists will be able to know what the frequencies are as they usually monitor radio frequencies, (ie watching the watchdogs), and c) the street medics and National Lawyers Guild can keep an ear out for if they need to be on scene anywhere to help an activist out of any situation that has gotten out of hand.

Thanks for your comments.

Dear B.K. DeLong,

Good points on the RF, as any intelligence requires a medium to travel through. As there exists a possibility that some people will attempt to provoke violence, (possibly agents provocateurs) it would be good for all around to listen to police or any other walkie-talkie toting chaps who have institutional vested interests. It makes it much harder for any obfuscators to obfuscate.

Gandhi told his Satyagrahi followers not to keep secrets from authorities. Those troublemakers who use violence need secrets to do so.

-CB

great investigation, I can't believe that nobody stopped you from taking those pictures, nevermind everything else. I am not sure if you are aware but the "manholes" that have large metal square access panels with a smaller vent are actually part of NSTARS electrical system. If somebody tossed an explosive device(even a small one) down that hatch it could shut down the power to whatever area that it serves.

In addition emergency exits from the subway system sometimes come up through a sidewalk.