Welcome To Fortress Boston

Democrats arriving in Boston are being greeted by dog patrols, officers in camouflage, large blockades of dump trucks and buses, and Air Force warplanes overhead.

The weekend before the start of the Democratic National Convention, the FleetCenter has been transformed into a secured fortress, surrounded by metal barricades and police officers.

Armed guards on Saturday roamed the remnants of an elevated railroad that once ran past the building, while police, some with K-9 units, patrolled below in groups of three. The streets leading to the arena's main entrance were blocked with yellow dump trucks filled with dirt. Pedestrians hoping to get inside the arena moved past security measures to a line of metal detectors.

Security agents loaded with sophisticated equipment disguised in backpacks monitored air quality in the FleetCenter area, on the lookout for radiological, biological and chemical attacks.

The convention begins Monday and ends Thursday with Sen. John Kerry's anticipated acceptance of the presidential nomination. Thousands of delegates, journalists and political dignitaries were preparing to descend on the city by Sunday night, when welcoming parties for state delegations were to be held at spots around the city.

Air Force Maj. Eric Butterbaugh, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colo., said that fighter pilots would be on patrol over Boston, but would not give specifics.

"We have aircraft that, since 9-11, have been patrolling the skies over the U.S. and Canada and major events like this," he said.

A massive security sweep of the FleetCenter began Friday and was completed about noon Saturday, a Secret Service spokeswoman said.

Some of the signs of security began in the week approaching the convention, and kicked into high gear by Saturday.

Electronic and wooden signs warned motorists along the highways of closures. Some 40 miles of highway leading into and out of the city will be closed from afternoons into the evening during the convention proceedings.

The city sits on Boston Harbor, and its waterways also were under tight security. A U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman declined to say what steps were being taken, but said the agency was extremely active.

"For all the things you can see, imagine what you can't see. Double that and that's our capability," said Coast Guard Petty Officer Lisa Hennings. "I wouldn't want to mess with us."

The Coast Guard has said it planned to use infrared and night-vision cameras in Boston Harbor and to randomly board commercial ships for security checks.

Along the waterfront, about a mile from the FleetCenter, motorists looking to park at an underground garage at the Boston Harbor Hotel were stopped by law enforcement officers. Drivers were told to turn off their engines for checks by a bomb-sniffing police dog.

At City Hall Plaza, at least a half dozen military police officers, dressed in camouflage, were posted outside the Government Center subway stop.

In other convention news, Boston firefighters have reached a contract agreement with the city that will avert union picketing at delegation welcoming parties for the Democratic National Convention, the president of a firefighters' union local said Sunday.

Nicholas DiMarino, of Boston Firefighters Local 718, declined to reveal details of the contract but said it was similar to the one approved under an arbitrated agreement with the police patrolmen's union.

The 1,460-member firefighters union was the largest in the city remaining without a contract.

Meanwhile, some of the thousands of protesters arriving in Boston spoke out angrily about restrictions that will confine them to a shadowy, closed-off piece of urban streetscape just over a block away from the FleetCenter.

"We don't deserve to be put in a detention center, a concentration camp,'' said Medea Benjamin of San Francisco. "It's tragic that here in Boston, the birthplace of democracy, our First Amendment rights are being trampled on."

Protesters are challenging the restrictions in an eleventh-hour court appeal.

Some protesters from the anti-war group Code Pink dressed in pink in Statue of Liberty garb and taped their mouths shut to make their point.