New Game Plan For Super Bowl Security

Last Year's Camouflaged Trucks Give Way To High-Tech Surveillance





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A security guard checks a journalist's bags at the entrance to the Super Bowl Media Center at the San Diego Convention Center.  (AP)



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(CBS) The Super Bowl will look less like a military staging ground, more like a high-tech surveillance area this year.

Gone from the site of the NFL's biggest game are the armored military trucks and camouflaged soldiers that gave last year's game such a chilling feel.

In their place is a state-of-the-art, 52-camera surveillance system that allows security guards to keep track of every corner of the Super Bowl stadium in real time.

It's part of an intensive, less intrusive effort to ensure safety at Sunday's game between the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Preparations have been under way for weeks.

That's fitting, reports CBS News Early Show Correspondent Jon Frankel, because the man behind the major story line of Sunday's game goes to legendary lengths to prepare.

Bucs coach Job Gruden is in his first year with the Tampa Bay franchise. Last year, he coached the Raiders before parting with Raiders owner Al Davis in somewhat unfriendly fashion — not an uncommon occurrence between Davis and head coaches.

This is the first year that a coach is facing a team he coached only the season before in the Super Bowl. Gruden is used to being first, in at least one respect. He wakes up at 3:17 each day to begin preparing.

Sunday, he'll hope his game plan bests his former players, some of whom have made the match-up personal because of Gruden's presence on the opposite sidelines.

Not that the Raiders needed motivational material — last year, the team's march to the AFC championship game was halted in Foxboro, Mass., on a controversial call that went the New England Patriots' way. The Pats went on to upset the St. Louis Rams and claim their first Super Bowl title.

Security had a high profile at that game, played only five months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. From the French Quarter to the Superdome, New Orleans was swarming with national guardsmen in military garb. Armored personnel carriers surrounded the dome.

The federal government designated the game a National Special Security Event, a status normally reserved for presidential and papal visits. The Secret Service coordinated security.

This year, those measures aren't being taken, mainly because the Office of Homeland Security has so much confidence in local authorities' ability to handle the game, NFL security expert Milt Ahlerich said.

"We're doing a lot of the same things. We're just doing it better, more efficiently," he said. "That's why people might not notice it as much."

San Diego police are spending about $2 million on security. About $400,000 is going toward the camera system that will leave no corner of Qualcomm Stadium unmonitored.

Unlike less-sophisticated camera systems, this one won't require security personnel to watch the footage from a central command post. Police working the stadium can see shots by hooking monitors into cell phones, meaning they can react to trouble almost immediately.

The cameras have been used at the stadium for weeks in preparation for the Super Bowl. At a San Diego Chargers game last month, they were able to catch a rowdy fan who had been thrown out of the game but tried to sneak back in.

"It's more cameras, it's more control of the cameras," said Bill Guetz, vice president of cVideo Inc., the company that created the system. "It allows a lot of government agencies to look at the same stuff at the same time."

San Diego Police Capt. Joel Bryden said hardly any military personnel are being used to secure the stadium, an odd twist considering San Diego has one of the nation's heaviest military presences at its naval station, host to several dozen warships.

Still, military jets will patrol the skies above the stadium to enforce a no-fly zone that has a 7-mile radius.

And the California National Guard will protect 29 massive tanks filled with about 700,000 barrels of combustible petroleum products near the stadium.
Just like last year, 90 metal detectors will ring the stadium. Ticketholders, who will go through the detectors and be checked for weapons, are being told to arrive early to avoid long lines.






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SUPER CITIES
Cities that have hosted Super Bowls, and the number they have had:

New Orleans 9

Miami 8

Los Angeles 7

Tampa Bay 3

San Diego 2

Atlanta 2

Arizona 1

Detroit 1

Houston 1

Minneapolis 1

Stanford 1

NFL