[dreamfactored]

I'm going to take it that you've never done public sector contracting. The security rules are in reality less 007 and more school library, and this is totally believable. There is another story in the news now about soldiers smartphones being hacked in Eastern Europe. The troops are therefore made to go through water every day but some of them just put their phones in condoms. Defense contractors aren't even state employees and the security checks are basically akin to credit checks.

Russia (and China and others) have an advantage here in having recently been run as controlled states and having much of the bureaucratic apparatus and social habits still in place (e.g. bring your passport to buy a train ticket to another town; little old lady stationed on every floor of a hotel keeping an eye on comings and goings etc).

[mncharity]

> Russia [...] controlled states [...] e.g. bring your passport to buy a train ticket to another town

That's a blast from the past. So, for those who haven't seen these, last century there used to be a set of "we're not like them, we have freedom!" examples, which were used in popular dialog to contrast the United States with the Soviet Union. Needing government papers to travel was one. The Soviet people feeling "why blame us for the actions of the government? - we don't control it" was another.

> Russia (and China and others) have an advantage here in having recently been run as controlled states

Well, we can't let them have that advantage over us! Googling "amtrack identification" yields "What Do You Need to Travel by Train in America? | USA Today" "Documents. [...] All travelers over age 18 and all unaccompanied minors age 15 and over must have a government issued I.D., such as a passport, driver's license or military I.D."

Like, foreign graduate students need to present their passports for inspection, in order to be permitted to enter my local Irish pub (Boston - minimum drinking age 21 - as required for federal highway funds).

Looking back, I don't recall anyone predicting, at the fall of the Soviet Union, that by losing a "them", for us to not be, we'd lose track of what we intended "us" to be.

[linkregister]

Where your analogy falls apart is that in Soviet states, passports weren't granted automatically as they are in the United States, nor was inter-state travel approved in the Soviet Union except for cause. There is no authority in the United States that requires justification for interstate air or train travel.

[mncharity]

An analogy? That my concrete examples seem analogorical, perhaps shows how much perspectives have changed? Or maybe I've just read too much into word choice.

Apropos change: Two decades ago, US inter-city air travel could be done anonymously - now it can't. US inter-city rail could be done anonymously - now it can't. US inter-city bus still can (though given credit cards, it's much less common), but I've seen "everyone must show identification to state/federal police to get on the bus" drills at bus depots. On intra-city subway and light-rail, it's been the (very infrequently exercised, except during a Democratic party convention) policy that state and federal officers with dogs can do random ID checks and bag inspections, or if someone refuses, require them to leave the train. Years ago, that was unimaginable. Around Boston and Manhattan, office buildings often had no ground floor security at all, or it was concierge - you'd just wander in and up to some office, and talk first with some receptionist, or if they weren't there, maybe hit a desk bell, or maybe wander around the office asking for directions. Now you usually hit security just inside the building door, and often have to present state identification, which is sometimes scanned or typed in. And get buzzed into offices. Office workers badge themselves through turnstiles and doors. Locked doors are more of a thing than they used to be. Before laptops, what is someone going to steal? Office supplies? A heavy typewriter? Large CRTs? MIT used to emphasize it was an "open campus", and students felt guilty about not doing enough wandering around in the evening/night, visiting labs and talking with people. Now that seems no longer a thing - lab doors and even whole buildings are locked to them, even with cards, even during the day. If you walk by a bar in Boston on a busy night, you will see someone standing there, checking government-issued identification. A few decades back, pre-MADD, that wasn't a thing.

We become used to "the way things are" so very rapidly, that it's easy to forget that the same familiar place, a few decades offset in time, could have had startlingly different attitudes and practices. As much as living in a foreign culture today.

[mncharity]

> [...] On [Boston] intra-city subway and light-rail [...]

[codedokode]

The reqiurement of an ID to buy a ticket or board a train might be also used to prevent buying out and reselling tickets later. And of course to prevent people who are wanted by the police from travelling.

[codedokode]

Phones transmit signal so soldiers can be easily detected: if you see a large number of signal sources somewhere in the forest the probability is high that a military squad is hiding there. Soldiers should not have a phone when on duty.

Futhermore, if military base is located near or in the city the enemy can bring an IMSI catcher and record phone identifiers, or intercept calls.

[cat199]

umm I think the point is that soldiers are sneaking phones in, and this is an example of bad security enforcement within the defense services, not that defense services shouldn't be heavily regulated internally..

[SerLava]

Wait, are you saying the commanders are trying to destroy the soldiers' personal hidden phones by making them swim with their gear?

[dreamfactored]

Yes, they are banned of course as per regulations but that is hardly going to stop the hardened phone addicts

[blackflame7000]

Well other soldiers should stop them if they see it since the phone addict is putting everyone at risk by shrieking for cell towers

[hahajk]

From the soldiers’ perspective, when there are rules dictating every aspect of your life from the type of haircut you can have to the types of food you can eat (no hemp seeds for example) it becomes difficult to recognize which rules are actually important.

[0xbear]

+1 having done this and having witnessed the staggering waste and incompetence on the part of people who should know better, I now feel really bad when paying my taxes. Truly, it’s better to not know how sausage is made.