ABSTRACT
Whether we watch them on television or participate in situ, large-scale public events are occasions that draw attention to the involvement of the state security apparatus in how such events are practiced. The visit of the late Pope John Paul II to Jerusalem in 2000 prompted the headline of The Jerusalem Post to read “The Biggest Security Blitz to Guard Pope Here.” The Summer Olympic Games in 2004 in Greece were so infused with security that the LA Times dubbed them ‘the Summer Security Games.’ More than 7 miles of barricades, rooftop sharpshooters, scores of cameras, and body searches of each and every person who entered the grounds of the Capitol in Washington D.C. were used during the second inauguration of President George W. Bush in 2005. So forthcoming were the Turkish surveillance and security measures during the 2006 visit of the current Pope Benedict XVI that the New York Times was prompted to report on helicopters hovering over Ankara, police commandos in uniforms spread throughout the streets, and sharpshooters trigger-ready on the rooftops of the buildings overlooking the path of the Pope’s entourage. I suggest that through these surveillance technologies and procedures, a security apparatus-an assemblage of different agencies, institutions, professionals, private enterprises, and technologies, mobilized for the purpose of providing security-frames how such public activity is practiced.
