Boston's Comfy Security Blanket

BOSTON, July 28 -- This is the first political convention to double as a trade show for the security industry. The city is festooned with gray barriers, black fencing, barbed wire, sniffing dogs, wands, metal detectors, scanners, car barriers, bomb mirrors, riot shields and earpieces.

Now let's party, people!

The first political convention of the post-9/11 era is proceeding according to plan. "We're in an experimental phase with all this," says former senator Gary Hart, who is milling around inside the hyper-secure area -- analogous to the Green Zone in central Baghdad -- that extends several hundred yards around the convention building. "In the age of terror, there is going to be a tendency to do more than is necessary at first."

Outside the perimeter, the city is scrubbed, largely bereft of cars for a workday and quiet except for sirens and helicopters. This is what closed roads, highways and train stations and $50 million in security apparatus and personnel will buy you: a sense of unmistakable safety and a weird, weird vibe.

No one is acting discernibly alarmed or annoyed, despite the security bottlenecks, relentless ID checks, mazes of steel and checkpoints. Nor is there much sense of festivity outside the TV studio (aka the FleetCenter), just an eerie drip of recognition of a threat that may or may not loom and a world that most definitely has changed.

The convention belongs to John Kerry, but it's a Tom Ridge production beyond the stage. Both have an overproduced quality, more show and steel than might be necessary.

"We keep taking pictures around the city of cops standing around doing nothing," says Steve Robinson, the husband of a Dean delegate from Kansas. He is standing in the fenced area across from the FleetCenter that is reserved for protesters. At 2:30 p.m. the "Play Pen" as some cops call it has just three protesters: one leafleting in support of the Falun Gong, another holds an anti-abortion sign and a third is a saxophonist playing "America the Beautiful." It is not clear what he's protesting.

As a whole, the police officers have been friendly and helpful, Robinson says. They are happy to give directions and recommend places to eat. That advice is coming mainly from the Boston police, who are represented here along with the Massachusetts state police, transit police, National Guards, Secret Service, explosives ordinance disposal teams, Capitol police, FBI, private security guards and our friends from the Transportation Security Administration (who are helping out at the metal detectors, confiscating umbrellas, bottled water and hairspray).

Early in the week, this coppapalooza comprised a formidable and slightly scary tableau. Now they look bored, increasingly so as the week wears on, to a point where some officers are complaining openly to delegates about how unessential they are here.

"Boredom is good, don't knock it," says one Boston police officer sitting outside the protest area (as a matter of department policy, he could not be quoted by name). Another Boston officer standing nearby says he's trying to meet delegates from every state this week -- sort of like counting state license plates on a long car trip. He has gotten about 30 states so far.

There were no DNC-related arrests on Monday or Tuesday and just one on Sunday, according to the Boston Herald. The police joke among themselves, talk on cell phones, watch the funny hats pass. They couldn't be less impressed by the throngs of Lyndon Larouche supporters, about 20 of whom mass for singing and chanting on the corner of Friend and Causeway streets. They couldn't be less convinced by the journalist who is trying to explain that he's a blogger and thus legitimate (if uncredentialed) and needs to get inside the perimeter.

The cops, chanting Larouchies and passing delegates are about 250 feet from the FleetCenter entrance. They are, in other words, close to the entrance, physically speaking. But this week brings a distinctive definition of "close," incorporating a matrix of barriers, checkpoints and zigzagging steel that can take you blocks out of your way before you can head back to your entrance. Imagine trying to enter an airport gate with a long line for security -- but before you get to security, you must walk for up to 20 minutes, depending where you begin. Once there, the screeners are professional and courteous, even when confiscating apples and bottled water.

Looming overhead are the helicopters and a large banner on the side of the FleetCenter that says, simply, "America 2004."