A Capitol Hill Trip Report

I was on Capitol Hill Monday and Tuesday lobbying for the Suborbital Institute, a new space organization dedicated to the advancement of private manned suborbital space flight.

Compared to the last time I was there lobbying for Pro-Space, another space activist organization, security was both heavy and extremely visible. The exterior police were either or both in SWAT type tactical uniforms and with automatic weapons.

There were numerous sensor set ups I had not seen in 2000. One Capitol Hill police car had what looked to be a sensor radome scanning the crowds around the Congressional office buildings.

The streets between the Rayburn, Longworth and Canon House office buildings were blocked off and had quick activating vehicular obstacles to let official traffic through the single lane gaps left by the barriers.

No heavy tractor trailer rigs are allowed near the Capitol complex. Smaller "Ryder sized" cargo trucks can come up to the back of the Congressional office complexes after screening.

The whole Capitol building is now surrounded by green metal poles set up as "decorations" but functioning as vehicular obstacles. Uncleared people are no longer allowed to use the underground passage from the House and Senate office buildings to Capitol Hill.

The "visitor center" work site immediately between the Capitol and the Supreme Court takes up the majority of the formerly open space on the Capitol Hill side of the street. This forces vehicle traffic and pedestrians into very narrow approaches over looked by police stationed on either end of the capitol building.

Every major Federal building I visited, including the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, had guarded entryways with airport style metal detectors. In each they had me take off my long coat -- a "duster" -- to run it through an X-Ray machine with the contents of my pockets.

A one point in my lobbying trip, I was within 20-25 feet of Secretary of State Colin Powell. I had crossed the street past a Limousine in front of the Dirkson Senate Office building. As I passed it to wait for the light and cross the street to the Russell Senate Office building, I heard someone behind me say something like "Way to go General!" I turned around and saw Powell moving briskly towards his limo and get in after waving back and giving a big smile. The security detail of "Men in Black" with their ballistic/laser proof eye wear surrounded the limo and withdrew with it.

Now I have been near State Department security before. When I previously been to the Hill, I had been standing on a corner next to the Rayburn House Office Building when a State Department convoy moving Egypt's "President for life" went by. You *know* when these people look at you. There is a real sense of controlled menace as they are visually evaluating you as a possible threat.

I did not get that from Powell's security detail and I was a great deal closer. That is when I realized that I had been "electronically frisked" in multiple sensor wave lengths before Powell actually left Dirkson, and that this had been passed to Powell's inner ring security detail before Powell exited the building. The whole of Capitol Hill is now a "Free Fire Zone" for the most advanced surveillance technologies the US government can afford.

One more thing struck me. While the security was heavy. It was *not* a real obstacle to my going about my business. The Capitol was at war, but it had not given up on doing the business of representative government. The terrorists have not touched or changed the real essence of American government.

That, for me, is a real and unnoticed victory in this war.