International Olympic Committee Head Jacques Rogge talked about security at the 2002 Games Wednesday at a news conference. He said, “it is all in place. You may not see them but they are there”. He said that special security units were in place to deal with any threat from biological or chemical weapons while a strict no-fly zone would be enforced around the site of the Games.
According to a CBS report, the Secret Service got the job of Olympic security three years ago when it was put in charge of any occasion declared “a national special security event”. Heading Olympic security is Mark Camillo, a former teacher and a karate master, whose staff has been planning for more than two years pulling together the FBI, National Guard, Utah’s state police and local police. His other credentials include standing guard for the President and coordinating security at the United Nations.
Fourteen Olympic venues and the athlete’s village will be covered with a $300-million security blanket, triple what was spent at the Atlanta Games.
The largest security force in Olympic history includes lite squads like the counter assault – or “CAT” – team. Although you won’t see them at the Olympics, they’ll be there, covering kings, queens and heads of state.
Also out of sight in the stadium and around the Games are members of the counter-sniper team.
Both teams are part of a security force of thousands that will be spread across 900 square miles of the Wasatch range with peaks over 9,600 feet tall.
The Secret Service has deputized officers from across the United States; people who can compete on Olympic runs. Their parkas are loaded with weapons and surveillance gear, like heat-sensing cameras, making it difficult for a 98-degree body against a 20-below background.
John Perry, a Forest Service policeman said, “what this does is give our officers that are gonna be out on their post – the swing shift, graveyard shift, in the darkness – a way to see the outer perimeter and check for anybody entering the area or leaving the area. And it’s our eyes in the night”.
There will also be a “smart” fence around the Olympic Village that signals for help if someone ties to cut or climb it.
And to guard the 3,500 athletes, coaches and trainers inside there will be screening locations set up working with personnel on a 24-hour basis. Nothing comes into the village unless it’s been screened beforehand.
Mitt Romney, head of SLOC, said people will be asked to come early so they can get through the magnetometers quickly enough to attend the show. Spectators will be admitted only on foot or by bus, parking their cars about 10 miles away in a massive parking lot and getting on transit buses that will drop them off at security checkpoints.
Also buses and every other vehicle allowed in will be screened by agents and bomb-sniffing dogs. And every venue will be secured, as if the president were attending the Games.
The military will provide fighter coverage. “We do not intend to tolerate anything coming at us from the air”, said Camillo.
