[ RadSafe ] New Your City Council meets on detectors

[Steven Dapra]

Jan. 29

         Please read the Village Voice article linked below.  Richard 
Falkenrath, the NYPD's deputy commissioner for counterterrorism is a first 
magnitude control freak.
Peter Vallone is the NYC Councilman who introduced the detector 
registration bill.   According to the VV article, "And if people use these 
detectors without a permit, Vallone asked, do we really have to put them in 
jail? Afraid so, Falkenrath answered."  This is so stupid it defies 
description.  NYPD can't keep up with crime as it is, and this dolt wants 
to throw people into jail for using geiger counters and smoke detectors??

         Some background on Falkenrath:  Assistant Professor of Public 
Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Director of the 
Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness. Author of a number books, the 
most recently being America's Achilles Heel, Nuclear, Biological, Chemical 
Terrorism and Covert Attack.  Member of the Council on Foreign Relations 
and a frequent consultant to the Departments of Defense, of Justice, as 
well as the intelligence community and private industry.  Graduate of 
Occidental College with a doctorate degree from the Department of War 
Studies, King's College, London.   (Found at
<http://www.upmc-biosecurity.com/website/events/2000_symposium-2/falkenrath/trans_falk.html>; 
website of the Center for Biosecurity at the U. of PIttsburgh Medical 
Center.  I made three or four small and insignificant edits.)

         More about Falkenrath:  "Falkenrath is a long-standing member -- 
albeit a junior one -- of the Bush inner circle. He worked on the 
administration's transition to power in 2000 and then in various positions 
dealing with weapons-proliferation issues and homeland security. According 
to an online biography, he was 'one of the architects of the Department of 
Homeland Security and the principal author of the National Strategy for 
Homeland Security.' "
(From 
<http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faresponse85215/daniel-benjamin-steven-simon-richard-a-falkenrath/the-war-of-unintended-consequences.html>. 
This bio is found near the beginning of David Benjamin and Steven Simon's 
reply to Falkenrath's review of their book "The Next Attack: The Failure of 
the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right."

         This detector registration bill is sheer lunacy, as well as being 
utterly impractical.

Steven Dapra


At 01:38 PM 1/29/08 -0800, Brennan, Mike  (DOH) wrote:
>As we discussed earlier:
>
>  http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0803,thompson,78873,2.html?c=1#comments

[edit]