Security limits access to top of Mount Rushmore

[RC]

KEYSTONE, S.D. - If you visit Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the next week or so, you might notice people moving around up on top.

Look hard. That is as close as you are going to get. It is also the only view available.

A trip to the top of Mount Rushmore is a tough ticket, especially these days. Tighter access measures were imposed following a security breach in July 2009 that allowed a group of Greenpeace protesters to scale the granite sculpture and unfurl a huge protest banner on climate change.

>SNIP<

After the Greenpeace protest, changes in security at Mount Rushmore included limiting access and avoiding the general circulation of video and images of the top taken by visitors. National Park Service officials now believe dissemination of such images constitutes an unjustifiable threat to security.

http://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/security-limits-access-to-top-of-mount-rushmore/article_f90137e2-f55e-11e0-b641-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=story

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I can see keeping people off the top, but pictures and video taken from the top? That has to be some view from up there.
Paranoia anyone? This is ridicules, boarding on stupid. Forget that, it is beyond stupid.
Download Google Earth

[thatgemguy]

1. Team America HQ

N/T

[Javaman]

2. Alfred Hitchcock is rolling in his grave. nt

[qb]

3. It's dangerous up there!!1! Here's one of the last surviving images:

:sarcasm:

[prairierose]

4. This is a stupid story...access to the top of the mountain has always been limited...

It is illegal to wander up there; as a couple of teen-age boys found last year or the year before. They hiked up from the back of the mountain.

The Greenpeace protesters hiked up from the back in the dark and hid until dawn. That was a tough hike and cold night.

In the past, some political heavyweights and a few rich people have gotten Park escorted hikes to the top but, in reality, very few people, other than park rangers have been to the top of the mountain. The only way to get up there is to hike and it is a tough hike and a long climb up that old staircase.

I do not understand this article since this has always been the policy. Yet, this story is written as if this is something new. :shrug:

[RC]

5. Read the bolded. Where is the security issue wiht pictures from the top?

That is my issue.

[prairierose]

6. It has nothing to do with security. The sculpture itself...

is the issue. They want to protect the sculpture from vandalism. When Greenpeace did their event, they hung their banner next to the sculpture. They did not touch the sculpture. But it can also be very dangerous up there. I do not want to see stories on the news / in my paper about stupid tourists falling off of Lincoln's head or Washington's wig. And that is what would happen. We have signs everywhere that buffalo are dangerous and not to approach them. Every year, tourists tell me they saw someone in the Park yesterday who was walking up to a buffalo to get a better picture. We haven't had anyone killed in a couple of years now and that is just luck and the fact that tourist traffic is down so much.

Nature causes damage to the sculpture by itself. If there were unknown numbers of people that would cause damage. And forget sidewalks, fences and signs. Americans can't be bothered by any of those. They just wander and when you say, "Can't you read the sign? They respond, "What sign"?

[neverforget]

7. No it's because that is where the City of Gold is located

at least according to Nicolas Cage in National Treasure 2