Above the Tearline: Super Bowl Security
Video Transcript:
Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton discusses the security measures and multiple government agencies that safeguard the Super Bowl.
Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
STRATFOR has received a lot of subscriber requests for our take on the security ramifications and the terror threat to the Super Bowl so we thought we would use this week's Tearline to discuss the complex security arrangements, intelligence collection and logistics behind what happens when one of these national special events occur.
The Super Bowl is a recognized national special event. With that comes the resources of the U.S. intelligence community. The Department of Homeland Security in Washington will do a baseline threat assessment typically a year out and then update that threat assessment six months later. Then as you move closer to the event -- 90 days, 60 days and 30 days -- each agency is required to have updated plans which include police deployments, EMS staging areas, emergency command posts as well as command-and-control responsibilities for the actual event. If you think about this in context of manpower, there are thousands of police officers, federal agents, security analysts as well as private security that are engage with this kind of event. Vendors will have requirements to submit names of their staff and those having access to the facility. The individuals that work your routine games, they are run through databases to make sure that they don't have an individual that's a sleeper terrorist or someone that's on the U.S. Secret Service lookouts. So the nature of this kind of business requires a tremendous amount of backroom logistics.
On game day when you envision the Super Bowl, think of this in context of not only concentric rings of security surrounding the venue but an umbrella protection program that's in place that stretches from North Texas to Washington D.C. Some of the things that most people will never see are restricted airspace, air cover by the U.S. military, SWAT teams and FBI HRT hostage rescue teams on alert and positioned to respond, as well an eye for any kind of global intelligence that has surfaced anywhere in the world that may affect the threat posture on the Super Bowl.
The "Above the Tearline" aspect of security for the Super Bowl is the ticketholder will not see a lot of the security plans that are in place. What they will see are those individuals verifying that in fact that ticket is legitimate, that is not counterfeit or stolen, as well as they will see hand wands, metal detectors, bag searches, canine dogs as well as a screening process of all vehicles to eliminate the car bomb threat. As I look at the risk to the Super Bowl, the real risk is outside of that secure perimeter. Soft targets such as hotels, tailgaters, or events outside of the security cordon which will be in place for the actual event.
