By Carlos Miller
As a Florida resident, I really did not appreciate the fact that sleeping Wackenhut guards were being paid to protect FPL’s Turkey Point nuclear facility.
And I did not appreciate the fact that Wackenhut was being investigated for overbilling taxpayers millions of dollars.
And I can’t stress how much I disliked a Wackenhut guard violating my First Amendment rights at a Miami Metro Mover station last May.
So I took great pleasure in producing a video of a group of Florida activists who were also disappointed in out local security company.
But knowing how stubborn Wackenhut CEO Gary Sanders is, I didn’t expect him to resign within hours after I had posted the video on Youtube yesterday.
Perhaps the video was the wake-up call he needed. Enjoy.
Update: Just remember, you heard it here first.
Pittsburg Post-Gazette
The Washington Post
CNN
Philadelphia Inquirer
The Miami Herald
Houston Chronicle
Popularity: 3% [?]
16 responses so far ↓
1 Ms Calabaza // Jan 9, 2008 at 11:52 AM
Good for you! That’s why it’s important for you to continue the fight to protect our first amendment rights.
2 Carl // Jan 9, 2008 at 5:23 PM
Don’t flatter yourself…. You have your story all wrong. Get it straight next time
3 Carlos Miller // Jan 9, 2008 at 6:00 PM
Carl,
What is inaccurate about the story? Here are the facts as I listed them.
1. Wackenhut guards have been caught sleeping on duty.
2. Wackenhut is being investigated for overbilling taxpayers millions of dollars.
3. A Wackenhut security guard violated my First Amendment rights last May at the Metro Mover.
4. I posted a video yesterday of a protest in front of FPL headquarters.
5. Wackenhut CEO Gary Sanders resigned within hours after the video was posted.
You and I both know that Gary Sanders has more pressing problems on his hands right now than to resign over a video.
But then again, I have no idea what is going through his mind.
All I know are the facts, which I just listed for you.
4 Julie // Jan 9, 2008 at 10:35 PM
And you and I both know, Carlos, that this video was just the last event in a LONG list of other ones putting the heat on Wackenhut. Clearly, they are feeling it.
5 The Teacher’s Mailroom : Wackenhut/Florida Power & Light: LOL. By Geniusofdespair // Jan 9, 2008 at 10:46 PM
[...] By Geniusofdespair Posted in January 9th, 2008 by admin in Florida News No Tags You can go see YouTube of FP&L Juno Beach Protest over Sleeping Wackenhut guards at nuke plant on Carlos Mille…. Apparently Carlos, an Eye on Miami reader, has a blog about his arrest for taking photographs of [...]
6 nonee moose // Jan 10, 2008 at 9:22 AM
Carlos Miller, Wackenhut Killer…
7 enhager // Jan 10, 2008 at 2:31 PM
best comment I’ve seen:
machine3 wrote:
I realize it’s probably a Germanic name, but “Wackenhut” sounds like a guard shack where you touch yourself.
at the Houston Chronicle – http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5443404.html
8 Carlos Miller // Jan 10, 2008 at 3:33 PM
Enhager,
Which probably explains why they tend to sleep on duty.
9 Carlos Miller // Jan 11, 2008 at 3:34 AM
Nonee,
Stick around, man. It’s going to get fun around here.
10 justaguy // Jan 11, 2008 at 5:18 PM
>> As a Florida resident, I really did not appreciate the fact that sleeping Wackenhut guards were being paid to protect FPL’s Turkey Point nuclear facility.
Do you also fail to appreciate it when firefighters are PAID TO SLEEP every night in almost every major city in the United States?
>> 1. Wackenhut guards have been caught sleeping on duty.
Show me a major security company that hasn’t. I personally woke up a Department of Defense police officer at a guard post on a military base. I know MPs and SPs that have woken up fellow guards at nuclear sites. This is an industry problem.
At Turkey Point, the guards that were asleep were part of a reaction force — not gate guards, not camera operators, not supervisors. Their job was to sit in that room and be ready to respond to an attack on the plant; like firefighters ready to roll when they get a call.
Public safety was not threatened.
I’m not revealing anything that’s not obvious to an educated layperson without an axe to grind.
>> 2. Wackenhut is being investigated for overbilling taxpayers millions of dollars.
True. Given the political ties between the Democratic Party, SEIU and local governments, I’m somehow not surprised. Where’s the love for the public employee contract administrators who weren’t auditing the accounts? All of a sudden it’s news, now that SEIU has decided that its path to the 21st century is over Wackenhut’s dead body.
>> 3. A Wackenhut security guard violated my First Amendment rights last May at the Metro Mover.
1) Prove it. Did you have a ticket to ride? The facilities are for riders not commercial photography. (As you point out, noncommercial photography is protected.)
2) TSA violates my civil rights every time I walk through a checkpoint. Why did you stop taking photos? If I were you, I’d have kept clicking and enjoyed winning my lawsuit for battery if he laid a finger on me.
3) Metro violated your rights, if they were in fact violated. (You should get a copy of Metro’s anti-photo policy, that would actually be useful.) The guard was just doing his job.
>> 4. I posted a video yesterday of a protest in front of FPL headquarters.
Cute, and thank you. I wonder if they were on paid time, and from who?
>> 5. Wackenhut CEO Gary Sanders resigned within hours after the video was posted.
Yawn. Misleading at best. Correlation is not causation.
You may be a great rabble-rouser, and a good photographer, but take care that you don’t also need to become a lawyer too.
11 Redsunrising // Jan 12, 2008 at 8:48 PM
Hey Justaguy,
Wackenhut, owned by British G4S, has forced Security officers to work excessive hours – six and seven straight days o f 12 hour shifts to boost their profit margins at the expense of national security performance and public safety- but you’ll have to grab the economics lesson elsewhere.
So sleeping guards at nuclear power plants like Turkey point pose no threat to public safety, eh ? I guess readiness doesn’t matter? Especially post 9-11? Why are these superfluous guards armed to the teeth and donning flap jackets as they snooze? Why even have window dressing security forces at nuclear power plant sites at all – that is, if their rem sleep while on duty is inconsequential to public safety.
I guess I should have breathed a sigh of relief when that news crew was greeted by a single Wackenhut guard at the Turkey Point front gate? You know, the guard who was carrying an M16 rifle? With no clip in the gun?
No sweat that at FPL’s St. Lucie Power plant, an audit found that Wackenhut security management took short cuts during patrols?
No red flag that a number of new fuel containers were transported into the protected area of St. Lucie on a flatbed truck escorted by Wackenhut security and the containers were parked outside of the radiologically controlled fences and were left unattended until plant operations management was ready to unload them?
No security breech when inspectors discovered that the containers were only sealed on one side, and had not been searched prior to entry into the plant, and that none of the previous fuel container shipments had been searched either?
Your conspiracy theory notwithstanding – (Democratic Party, SEIU, Local Goverments, the Kitchen Sink) at the end of the day Wackenhut owns its security performance or lack thereof. After all Wackenhut’s the one under criminal investigation for overbilling Miami-Dades taxpayers millions and it was Wackenhut’s Miami headquarters that was recently raided by Miami Dade and federal investigators… Not to mention recent headlines coming out of Nashville…
On Gary Sanders “resignation”. Connect the dots.
Carlos – Too bad America’s paying foreign owned Wackenhut for a false sense of security. Let’s not allow Wackenhut to rip us off our First Amendment Rights to boot.
12 ur an idiot // Jan 28, 2008 at 3:52 PM
u sure youre a “journalist”? leave that stuff to the big boys, keep prayin that youll one day be an internet celebrity
13 Doodee // Jan 31, 2008 at 7:42 PM
Thanks for sharing
14 alustyday // Feb 8, 2008 at 2:35 PM
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:
15 Dwight // Oct 16, 2009 at 11:53 AM
That had nothing to do with it!.. Wackenhut discontinued the contract at Juno Beach Bbecause FPL wanted to pay less!!!!!……
16 Jimbo // Jul 2, 2010 at 10:52 AM
Well, when you are forced to work 40 plus hours and then some due to man power issues and you need the stay employed you tend to bend the rules.
The yahoo that filmed the whole thing was a young wanna-be cop type that was tying to make an impression that he was the man of the place and that since no one accepted him as the “only one who knew things” he had an axe to grind.
Every company in this country at one time has trampled on someones rights now and then. The media is a double edged sword, if they any of you where a story they wold have that camera up your ass and you would be screaming foul.
You were not there, nether was the media.
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