伦敦高度戒备迎奥运

    2005年7月7日，就在伦敦获得2012年奥运会主办权后第一天，恐怖分子对该市公共交通系统实施了连环爆炸袭击，56人因此丧生。为防止悲剧再次上演，保护约2.5万名参赛运动员及其家属、教练和官员（以及约70万名观众）的人身安全，迄今为止安保费用支出已经逾16亿美元。而9/11之前的悉尼奥运会，该项费用仅为1.796亿美元。

    某些隐私权鼓吹者已经在质疑这笔巨额纳税人资金的使用效率。隐私权组织No2ID的活动经理詹姆士•贝克指出，虽然安装了虹膜和指纹扫描系统，一位来自通俗小报《太阳报》的热心人士还是在5月份将一枚假炸弹成功带入了奥林匹克公园。贝克也质疑当局能否迅速地利用监视技术网络以发挥其效用：在2009年，伦敦的1万个车牌扫描仪中的某几台捕捉到了彼得•查普曼驾驶的汽车，而他当时已经因纵火、盗窃和违反其性罪犯身份要求而被通缉。但警察穷于应付该监视系统带来的诸多线索，并未注意查普曼的出现。两天之后，他强奸并杀害了一名通过Facebook认识的女孩。

    贝克也担心在奥运会闭幕之后，监视系统将继续存在并被底层官员滥用。他指出英国政府已经在使用反恐权力获取电话记录，并秘密地给公民录像，以检查他们是否清理狗屎及按规定日期倒垃圾。

    不管每个英镑有没有被合理使用，奥运组织者也不会节约任何安保费用。今夏，伦敦将成为一座防御堡垒，英国皇家海军最大的航母、台风战斗机、飞行狙击手、超过2.3万名保安人员（包括1.35万名英军士兵）都将出动保护，而新增的大量摄像头巩固了伦敦作为全球监控最严密的城市之一的地位。依照一份价值3020万美元的合同，美国安保公司Rapiscan已经交付了2700多台扫描仪，仅奥林匹克公园一地就可提供每天高达20万人次的机场级别的安检。前身为Securicor的英国保安公司G4S负责雇佣私人保安，执行所有的搜索和扫描任务。为了快速雇佣和培训超过1万名场地保安，G4S的合同已经超支到惊人的4.48亿美元，引发了议员们的愤慨。

    On July 7, 2005, one day after Londoners received word that the city would host the 2012 Olympics, terrorist bombs tore through the public transit system, killing 56 people. To prevent a repeat attack and protect the roughly 25,000 athletes, family members, coaches, and officials attending (along with roughly 700,000 spectators), spending on security has topped $1.6 billion. Sydney's pre-9/11 Olympic security in 2000 cost only $179.6 million.

    Some privacy advocates have questioned the efficacy of such huge outlays of taxpayer cash. James Baker, the campaign manager for the privacy organization No2ID, points out that in May, a concerned workman at The Sun tabloid was able to smuggle a fake bomb into the Olympic Park in spite of spite of iris and hand scanners at the site. Baker also wonders if authorities will be able to use the web of surveillance technologies quickly enough to be effective -- he points out that in 2009, several of the more than 10,000 license plate scanners around the country detected the car of Peter Chapman 16 different times -- he was wanted for arson, theft, and violation of his status as a sex offender. But police were inundated with hits from the system and did not follow up. Two days later, he raped and murdered a teen he met via Facebook.

    Baker also worries that after the Games are over, the surveillance tech will remain -- and be abused by petty bureaucrats. He notes that local governments in the U.K. have already used anti-terrorism powers to obtain phone records and secretly videotape citizens to see if they are cleaning up after their dogs or taking out the garbage on the right day.

    Whether or not every pound is well-spent, games organizers have spared no security expense. This summer, the city will become a fortress, protected by the largest aircraft carrier in the British Royal Navy, Eurofighter Typhoon jets, flying marksmen, more than 23,000 security personnel (including 13,500 British soldiers), and an array of new cameras added to a city that was already among the world's most heavily surveilled. As part of a $30.2 million contract, the American security company Rapiscan has delivered over 2,700 scanners to provide airport-level security for up to 200,000 visitors a day to the Olympic Park alone. Administering all of the searches and scans will be private guards hired by the U.K.-based security firm G4S, formerly known as Securicor. In its rush to hire and train more than 10,000 guards to provide venue security, the G4S contract has swelled to a whopping $448 million dollars, sparking outrage in Parliament.