Super Bowl, Winter Olympics, soccer World Cup take extra security measures

The massive, multimillion-dollar security operations for the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics are being adjusted in light of recent breaches such as the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an airliner and the White House gate crashers.

ABC News reports that sports and government officials say such lapses — where individuals got past guards on the ground — are leading to increased screening efforts at major upcoming events, including the NFL championship game between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints in Miami this coming Sunday, and the Vancouver Games starting 12 February.

Extensive ticket-checking procedures also are being implemented for soccer’s World Cup, which begins 11 June in South Africa. Even entertainment awards shows are taking extra steps, like stricter monitoring of cars arriving at the Golden Globes Awards ceremony two weeks ago.

“We’re very mindful of the world that we live in,” the NFL’s vice president of security, Milt Ahlerich, said in a telephone interview from Florida. “We put our fate and our protection in the hands of that person on the front lines — those people that are protecting our gates — and being sure that someone who comes through doesn’t have anything on them,” Ahlerich said.

Part of the $6 million or so the NFL spends each year for Super Bowl security — on top of tax dollars spent by the government — has been devoted to what Ahlerich said were “several hours of extra training” for screeners by the Secret Service and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). He would not say whether any additional screening equipment was added in response to the failed 25 December attack on a flight from the Netherlands to Detroit.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Bert Paquet, a spokesman for the Olympics security task force, acknowledged the failed bombing prompted intensive reassessments. “It is definitely an incident that has raised our awareness,” Paquet said. “While there’s been no specific credible threat to the games, we understand the threat is always there. … We’ve increased police presence at all entry points — the airport, the port.”

He said more full-body scanners were being acquired, for use at the airport and possibly some Olympic venues, to supplement walkthrough and hand -held metal detectors screeners will use at event sites. While most screeners already had completed training before late December, the RCMP officers supervising screeners were given an updated briefing on how the Christmas Day episode could affect Olympic operations.

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