Research Paper on Comparison of the 2000 And 2004 Democratic National Convention Security Plan

Introduction

Los Angeles hosted the 2000 Democratic National convention for four days, 14-17 August of 2000. The event attracted an estimated 35, 000 delegates (Mitchell, 2016). The event also drew journalists, several dignitaries and even protesters. The DNC created a favourable platform that attracted several groups to organise demonstrations. The DNC settled for Staple Centre as the arena for the event due to its available capacity of 900 000 and strategic location at the 1111 South Figueroa street. The convention nominated Al Gore for the presidency and Joe Lieberman for the seat of vice president.

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Los Angeles administration was not new in hosting such an event since they hosted the 1960 DCN, therefore, had some basis for organising their plan for the 2000 DCN (Howitt & Leonard, 2009). However, the 2000 DNC was critical since it followed the disruptions that occurred in the 1999 World Trade Organisation (WTO) conference. During the disruptions anarchists and some other activist groups whose primary intention was to cut short the event had their way by blocking the primary access roads to the arena, looting hotels, destroying property, and deterring delegates from accessing the focal point of the event (Della, Peterson & Reiter, 2016). A similar demonstration also affected the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April 2000. The groups and activists that staged the two demonstrations planned to do the same to the 2000 DNC, therefore, the planners had to be vigilant in their security structure for the event.

On the other hand, the 2004 DCN was held in Boston, Massachusetts running from 26 to 29 of July 2004. The venue was Fleet Centre, currently known as the TD Garden. The nominees were John Kerry for the presidency and John Edwards for vice president (Howitt & Leonard, 2009). The city's administration celebrated their hard-fought victory of beating out several big cities in the race for hosting the event. The town was jubilant since they intended to reap big regarding economic benefits form the vast masses expected to flow into the city attracted by the convention (Heberlig, Leland, & Swindell, 2017). The city also had the opportunity to finally to showcase its rich history and contemporary, attractive features to a broad national and international media audience.

Despite the joy of a successful bid the city had to face the sombre reality of hosting a major political convention following the 9/11 terrorist attack in the United States. It meant that there was no room for compromise in the security plan since such significant conferences had a rich history of attracting protesters. Apart from the domestic protesters, Boston had a unique problem since it had to plan for possible terrorist attack from groups eager to bank on the opportunity to disrupt a crucial symbol for the United States and more importantly the nation's democratic process. The city had no precedent similar event to assist in guiding the security plan for the dangerous time. Therefore, the task of developing a comprehensive security plan for the convention was an expensive and daunting one. The city was consequently forced to outsource experience and expertise from the U.S secret service.

Background

2000 DNC Background

The DNC invited 28 cities to bid for hosting the convention. Among the 28 only nine submitted their bids including Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia and Minneapolis which were visited for verification by the DNC. Philadelphia was selected to host the 2000 Republican National Convention, therefore, forcing it to withdraw its proposal. Los Angeles, Denver, and Boston were named in the final lists, but DNC settled for Los Angeles to host the 2000 convention. After the announcement, the security plan commenced immediately, and the Los Angeles police department had to move quickly to develop the program. Its mission was to ensure safety to all the individuals attending the event. It, therefore, had to cooperate with other city departments, state agencies, county and federal agencies to ensure the success of the mission. The police department had five principal objectives which were to maintain order, to protect lives, property, critical facilities and to arrest lawbreakers. The LAPD formal plan for the convention began in 1999 April by selecting a committee, the Democratic National Convention Group that would coordinate and monitor the security plan (Brown, 2015). The security plan was a multi-agency activity incorporating approximately thirty entities. The agencies included the secret service, FBI, Loa Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Los Angeles Department of Transportation, CHP, LA Fire Department, LA City Attorney's Office, and others.

2004 DCN Background

Mayor Menino of Boston City struggled to bring the DCN convention in his city. According to Julie Burns, who was a deputy chief of stuff for Menino and who spearheaded the bid for the conference, the DNC was not a huge event since they expected a small figure of approximately 35 000 people compared to hundreds of thousands who attended the Patriots' Super Bowl parade. Still, the event was expected to expand business in the city (Howitt & Leonard, 2009). The administrators involved in organising the event estimated that it would inject approximately $ 154 million in the city's economy in the short term which will assist in attracting investors in the long run (Heberlig, Leland, Shields, & Swindell, 2016). Immediately after winning the fought for the prize, the responsibility of planning for the convention surfaced. The massive job of organising for the event fell on the host committee which was headed by two former Mayor Menino assistants, Julie Burns as the executive director and David Passafaro as the president. The committee had several duties including devising ways to raise the budgeted $ 49.5 million to fund the event. The committee also had difficulty in determining whether the estimated sum would cover all the cost expected during the convention and particularly the most dangerous factor, security.

The Significance of the Study

Security measures are usually decided at very early stages before the occurrence of the event vulnerable to a security breach. Therefore, without proper analysis of security feature of precedent events, it is challenging to plan for future events comprehensively (Peltier, 2016). Like in the case of analysing the security procedure in the plan for both the 2000 and 2004 DNC will help in identifying the weaknesses and strength of the programs. The identifying inadequacies will assist in developing mitigation measures to be implemented in future applications. The identified strengths assist in providing a foundation for basing and supporting subsequent plan and minimising the hustle of going through the previous security plans again. The information developed from such analysis provide sufficient data to the agencies bestowed with the responsibility of preventing terrorism, sabotage, and espionage to help them in planning their activities (Norris & Grol-Prokopczyk, 2015). It is essential to describe the flaws in the security system whether the result from the side of the agency or the organisation since consequences of such lapses may be very adverse. Identify and correcting the future developed plan is beneficial in maintaining the economic growth and harmony within the society.

Strengths of the 2000 DNC Security Plan

NSSE Designation

The security plan involved the host committee seeking assistance from the federal government by requesting that the event is listed as a National Special Security Event (NSSE). Even though the NSSE provided no funding, it meant that the host city would benefit from the participation of federal agencies in the planning process (Garrett & Reese, 2015). The plan, therefore, incorporated the role and responsibilities of three different federal agencies namely the Federal Emergent Management Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Secret Service. The FBI was responsible for preparing the identification and resolution of any crisis that might arise. The FEMA was responsible for mitigating the consequences of any incident that may occur while the Secret service was there as the leader in the preparation of coordination of the security plan. The involvement of the Secret service meant that the protection of the executive including the president and the vice president with their families was assured. The agency also had to protect other dignitaries both within the country and abroad.

Special Training

The planning process also incorporated additional training to all department personnel. The plan designated a minimum of 16 hours of training to each department (Pillay, 2016). The training focussed on enlightening the officer on tactics and legal information relevant to the event. The LAPD officials were trained on the laws governing arrest of individuals, rights of citizens, and lawful and unlawful gatherings to assist them in dealing with protesters. All the other specialised agencies such as the Detectives, Narcotics, the Metropolitan division, and the FBI also received relevant training specific to the DNC assignment (Howitt & Leonard, 2009). The training objective was to ensure that flow of activities in the community was not unnecessarily interrupted and that the protesters would be contained even as they exercise their right of free speech lawfully as described in the first amendment.

Dialogue and Protesting Zone

The plan also had designated an area strictly for public demonstrations in its efforts to uphold the lawful exercise of the first amendment (Miller, 2016). The plan incorporated a strategy that involved promoting dialogue between the LAPD officials and the protesters representative. The dialogue welcomed mediation from entities such as the Human Relation commission to ensure peace during the convention. Meeting were also held with the business community to explain the extent of disruption of normal flow of events during the convention so that it could not stir up unduly unrest.

Weaknesses of the 2000 DNC Security Plan

Agency Rivalry

The security plan was a malty-agency program and would involve over 31 agencies. In developing the structure of the project, there arise periods of misunderstanding mainly due to the difference in perspective and priorities for various departments. It delays the planning process and may spill over to the implementation stage. For example, FBI and the Secret Service have a long history of rivalry (Shiraz, 2017). Therefore, traditional competition was a significant setback in the security plan.

Departmental Differences

The security plan was subdivided into several small departments that would operate independently and report to the head of the overall strategy. There could arise specific misunderstanding within given departments that might not reach the monitoring committee during the briefing. The situation remaining undetected by the head of the plan presents a position of a smooth flow of activities which is not the case, and it slows down the overall process.

Reasons for Protest

During the 2000 DNC protects continued as in the other preceding gatherings such as the IMF meeting and the WTO conference (Howitt & Leonard, 2009). During the convention, demonstrations were unavoidable since the planning committee had designated a protest zone and discussed with then available groups of protesters allocating each group time to protest. The stage was even prepared with a public address. The area was also not very far from the Staples Centre where the convention was taking place. The suitable location, therefore, attracted many protesters (Hermes, 2015). The city's management also reje...