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Nelson Mandela memorial security scandal: 'There were no checks'
Washington Examiner ^ | 12-14-13 | Byron York

Posted on 12/14/2013 1:41:40 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic

It's becoming increasingly clear that when President Obama arrived at the Nelson Mandela memorial service in Johannesburg, South Africa Tuesday, he stepped into an atmosphere so chaotic, disorganized, and unsafe that under any other circumstances the White House and Secret Service might well have insisted the president not appear.

FNB Stadium, where the memorial was held, seats 95,000 people. Even with a steady rain and thousands of empty seats in uncovered areas, there were tens of thousands of people in the area with the president. It appears most of them got in without going through any security.

"There were no security checks upon entry to the stadium," a local South African activist wrote Friday in a letter to the Johannesburg Star newspaper. "I walked freely to my seat without passing through metal detectors, being searched or any other check."

The stadium's main entrance was "completely unattended," a reporter for a Washington, D.C., television station told Politico. "There were no workers performing bag checks or pat-downs — there were no magnetometers to walk through, no metal detector wands being used — anywhere."

Britain's The Independent newspaper reported that "thousands of guests entering the FNB stadium in Soweto on Tuesday, especially those who had arrived very early, were not searched." In addition, members of the media "were permitted to enter the press area directly beneath where politicians and dignitaries were seated without being asked to show passes." And the Daily Mail reported that "the first crowds entered the stadium without being searched."

When South African security officials did perform security checks, they were often trying to restrain the bodyguards and entourage members of visiting dignitaries and celebrities. But conflicts seem to have been resolved by letting everybody in.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: mandela; nelsonmandela; obama; secretservice; security; signlanguage; southafrica
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To: Tax-chick

Pretty sure that is a bad assumption.


41 posted on 12/14/2013 4:56:41 PM PST by mad_as_he$$
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To: MissMagnolia
please don't misunderstand me here. I share your view! I was simply quoting The obama zombies...


42 posted on 12/14/2013 4:59:38 PM PST by MeshugeMikey ( Visit http://icantenroll.com/ In Glitch We Trust....;o})
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To: dalereed

Any shooter that even attempted to hurt the messiah would have been killed a thousand times over by the South African mob everywhere.


43 posted on 12/14/2013 6:03:06 PM PST by George from New England (escaped CT in 2006, now living north of Tampa)
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To: MeshugeMikey

No ‘misunderstanding’ .... just mocking their slogan and piling on! :-)


44 posted on 12/14/2013 7:27:59 PM PST by MissMagnolia (You see, truth always resides wherever brave men still have ammunition. I pick truth. (John Ransom))
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To: SkyDancer

Your animation of the phony sign language interpreter with the balloons is hilarious!! The balloon dog is more productive and more fun than gibberish.


45 posted on 12/14/2013 10:06:20 PM PST by KittyKares (.)
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To: MissMagnolia
the Modern Neo Stalinist's slogans are no less outlandish and meaningless than those of their predecessors.


46 posted on 12/15/2013 6:50:33 AM PST by MeshugeMikey ( Visit http://icantenroll.com/ In Glitch We Trust....;o})
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To: KittyKares

Thank you. That’s why I read the foreign press or listen to FOX news. I got that from the Daily Mail a UK press. Our media wouldn’t dare post that.


47 posted on 12/15/2013 6:53:35 AM PST by SkyDancer (Live your life in such a way that the Westboro church will want to picket your funeral.)
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