Presdiential Security

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration is currently mulling over a rather interesting idea. In order to ensure security for Poland's presidency of the EU in the second half of the year it is considering banning virtually every type of conceivable weapon.

All very well and good you may thing; yet lets have a look at this list: The Law on arms and ammunition, which is the basis to issue the regulation, includes not only regulation firearms. It is also mentioned in her air-guns, CS GAS, and tools and equipment, whose use could threaten life or health. This last category includes crossbows, stun guns and melee weapons (according to the law: Blades  hidden in objects like guns, brass knuckles and some types of clubs, including baseball bats).

In essense then the following is Public Enemy Number One:

A similar law as put in place in Warsaw during the funeral of President Kaczyński  when Warsaw was placed under such a restriction. Basically it was illegal to enter enter public placed in Warsaw with any of the proscribed instruments. The law as suggested for the presidency will cover certain cities during specific time periods. Once again, all very well and good.

It seems logical to ban guys with guns from being in the same city as visiting dignities. Yet as revealed by various news agencies it will also affect a baseball team travelling to a match.

Commentary?  Well, in my view this is all a tad over the top and a blanket solution to a specific problem. It is akin to the recent ruling in which Lech Poznan and Legia Warsaw had to play their games behind closed doors due to football hooliganism. By targeting all possible weapons the government are in fact breaking one of the cardinal rules of security: Security has to make sense.

If the security measures cause more negative effects than the conceivable negative effects that would be apparent through a lack of the measure, then the security measure defeats its self. For example, during the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland shoppers were under a continuous bomb threat; yet security had to allow people to actually move around and shop else the terrorists had to all extents and purposes one.

Returning to Poland, rather than employing intelligence assets to target prospectively specific threats, the government has chosen to employ a draconian method of civil control. In affect it has curtailed the normal rights of its citizens in order to play the 'tough on security card'.