What were they thinking?

wsuffa

wsuffa

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Bill S.
Didn't the Federales learn anything from the photo op in New York?

D.C. police say an incident Friday in which a Coast Guard vessel -- according to television footage -- appeared to fire live shots on the Potomac River was a training exercise and posed no public threat.
................
The incident occurred near the Memorial Bridge, at approximately the same time that President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were laying a wreath at the Pentagon memorial, a short distance away.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091101740.html?hpid=topnews
 
I don't think this was their fault. Someone heard something on the radio and assumed it was real. "Bang bang" is not gunfire. Just overblown by the media.
 
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/11/coast-guarg-fires-boat-potomac-river/
...Coast Guard Chief Keith Moore said despite earlier reports, no shots were fired as part of the exercise...
...More than an hour after its first reports, CNN anchor Kyra Phillips said on the air that CNN's initial report stemmed from someone saying "bang, bang, bang" over a radio frequency monitored by the network's police scanner...
-harry
 
Sigh. Eyewitness reports. Always accurate.

Why must people assume EVERYTHING is a terrorist situation these days?? Oh, I guess because we're code Mauve, or Code Raw Umber, or whatever our national terrorism color is today.
 
The FCC has regulations against the use of intercepted transmissions....like the 911 calls that the TV stations are so proud of...and they are ignored by just about everyone. There is no way to stop idiots from using scanners and misinterpreting what they hear.

Bob Gardner
 
bobmrg said:
The FCC has regulations against the use of intercepted transmissions....like the 911 calls that the TV stations are so proud of...and they are ignored by just about everyone. There is no way to stop idiots from using scanners and misinterpreting what they hear.

Bob Gardner
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I just don't understand how you misinterpret "bang bang" with the sound of actual gunfire. Have these reporters never heard a gunshot before and actually believe that's the sound it makes? :dunno:
 
bobmrg said:
The FCC has regulations against the use of intercepted transmissions....like the 911 calls that the TV stations are so proud of...and they are ignored by just about everyone. There is no way to stop idiots from using scanners and misinterpreting what they hear.

Bob Gardner
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The 911 call are not intercepted phone calls. Those are released tapes normally from the EOC for the 911 call center, they available under the FOIA. As for intercepted radio transmissions. Up until the 1990's you could receive anything you wanted. But after a certain former speaker of the House of Representatives had his cell phone call recorded and released a new law was passed making it illegal to intercept cell phone calls.

You still can intercept pretty much anything else, but you are not allowed to broadcast nor benefit commercially from it.

FYI marine radio transmissions are fair game for interception. The USCG broadcasts in the clear on several channels and their own working channels. Those channels are available on COTS marine radios.

On Lake Michigan the USCG uses 23A on the west side and 21A on the east side. These are publicly known and lots of people listen in.
 
It's not a lot different than the Photo Op with AF1 in NY.

The place they were doing the exercise is - well I can see it out the window in the conference room next to my office. It's about as high-profile as you can get on the Potomac.... literally abeam Arlington Cemetary and just north of the Pentagon.

Forgetting the radio transmissions for a minute, a couple of CG boats circling and pointing guns at another boat in a manner that simulates an intercept - on 9/11, around the same time as the events, and as the President is making an appearance nearby - you think nobody's going to see that and think it's "strange"? Can't see the message boards on the bridge right now, but they usually run signs asking people to call in "suspicious" activity.

Just like the AF1 Photo Op was mistaken for an attack - this was mistaken, too.

I'm surprised - but not too surprised - that they shut down DCA for about 1/2 hour. This whole thing went on under the arrival path for 19.
 
wsuffa said:
It's not a lot different than the Photo Op with AF1 in NY.

The place they were doing the exercise is - well I can see it out the window in the conference room next to my office. It's about as high-profile as you can get on the Potomac.... literally abeam Arlington Cemetary and just north of the Pentagon.

Forgetting the radio transmissions for a minute, a couple of CG boats circling and pointing guns at another boat in a manner that simulates an intercept - on 9/11, around the same time as the events, and as the President is making an appearance nearby - you think nobody's going to see that and think it's "strange"? Can't see the message boards on the bridge right now, but they usually run signs asking people to call in "suspicious" activity.

Just like the AF1 Photo Op was mistaken for an attack - this was mistaken, too.

I'm surprised - but not too surprised - that they shut down DCA for about 1/2 hour. This whole thing went on under the arrival path for 19.
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The USCG should have notified the Department of Homeland Security.

Oh wait.

USCG is part of the DHS.

Maybe the DHS should pull its collective head out and stop the over reacting stuff to a CNN report.

I also think that CNN bears some responsibility for rushing to the airwaves with a story they really knew nothing about. They should have taken the time to actually do journalism. Like step 1, calling the PAO at USCG and ask what is going on.
 
smigaldi said:
I also think that CNN bears some responsibility for rushing to the airwaves with a story they really knew nothing about. They should have taken the time to actually do journalism. Like step 1, calling the PAO at USCG and ask what is going on.
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WHat? Are you nuts? They might get scooped??? Wait and actually check out the story before running with it? Scott, you fool, what are you talking about??!

:rolleyes2:
 
kkoran said:
I guess no one in government should do anything without informing the rest of the world. This was a minor, internal (local USCG-only) exercise that they do several times a week.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy.../09/11/AR2009091102802.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
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Oh, I agree.

But the same case could be made for the photo op.

Common sense tells you that there might actually be better places to do the exercise - like a couple of miles downriver. The fact that it's routinely done other times and places without raising an issue should tell us something.
 
I'd bet, because of the proximity of the president, that CNN was monitoring channels they don't normally monitor. If using a scanner, they missed the preamble to the transmission that it was a drill. Rather than be scooped, they broke the "story".
And like when the media "broke" the story of the plane crashlanding on route 495 in Ma a couple of weeks ago, they don't have a clue about what is normal nor do they bother with finding someone that does. They pick key phrases that "sound newsy".
Instead of the media MAKING NEWS, how about just reporting it.
"BANG, BANG" indeed.
 
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