VANCOUVER, Feb 10, 2010 (AFP) - With over 15,000 highly-trained security personnel, backed by a lethal arsenal of military hardware, Vancouver has been wrapped in a billion-dollar security blanket for the Winter Olympics which start on Friday.
To battle potential threats from terrorism, crime and violent protests at the February 12-28 Games, 15,500 police, military and private security guards have converged on this western Canadian city.
But the security operation - and its one billion Canadian dollars (936 million US) budget - has drawn intense criticism.
Vocal anti-Games protesters say the money should go to social causes like Vancouver’s notorious homelessness problem.
Activists, meanwhile, have argued they fear civil rights violations, and have charged that police tactics of questioning protesters at their work or while shopping is harassment.
"We are continually monitoring and examining all potential threats and risks. We don't elaborate on what information we receive," Mandy Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit (ISU) told AFP.
"We are planning to a medium threat level, and we can ramp that up or down. The games right now are at a low level."
Vancouver’s location is a strength and a weakness, said professor Allen Sens, an international security specialist at the University of British Columbia.
Olympic venues are spread over 15,000 square kilometres (5,800 square miles), from the urban metropolis of Vancouver to the rugged mountains of Whistler, 120 kilometres (75 miles) north of here, the venue for the blue riband skiing events.
In Vancouver, squeezed onto a delta between the US border, rivers, ocean and mountains, security plans call for navy divers, air force helicopters to transport SWAT teams quickly, surveillance cameras, police dogs, snowmobiles and even fighter jets -- which the North American Aerospace Defence Command has said will use "lethal force" if necessary.
The budget for Games security was pegged at 175 million Canadian dollars in Vancouver’s Olympic bid, but has snowballed to about one billion.
"The original estimate for the security cost of the games was a hideous under-estimate," said Sens.
The one billion dollar budget is consistent "with the types of security mounted at previous Games. Since Munich in 1972 there’s been a growing concern about security."
The massive security presence will be hard to miss - not least because of a white military balloon the size of a car floating 300 metres (1,000 feet) above Whistler.
The high-tech balloon can spot objects 32 kilometres away (20 miles) and "is designed to observe the backcountry approaches in to the Whistler Athletes Village," police captain Chris Poulton told AFP.
Called a Persistent Surveillance Aerostat, or just PSA, "it's a helium-filled balloon and there’s a camera on it, and it’s attached to a ground station monitored by army members," said Poulton.
"It helps us be the eyes for the (police)."
