More On The Topic Of Being Overly Paranoid & Under Prepared For Real Security

Questionable Clothing Closes Federal Courthouse

We have gotten so paranoid that not only do we allow our current government to completely undermine our civil liberties, but we see the bogeyman in a bundle of clothes left by a homeless man. Odds are the homeless man is a veteran that received a lot of regard from the Bush administration, but can't seem to get any real help for his post-traumatic stress disorder, housing needs, medicines or even the right to sleep in the park over a steam grate.

A federal courthouse within sight of the Capitol was evacuated for three hours Wednesday morning while authorities investigated a suspicious package that turned out to be a homeless person's clothes, officials said.

The building was evacuated when a police dog trained to detect explosives alerted to a package found near a construction trailer outside the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse.

U.S. Marshal George B. Walsh said the package contained discarded clothing believed to belong to one of the homeless people who sleep in the nearby park. Soiled clothing can give off a scent similar to some nitrogen-based explosives, authorities said.

Marshals ordered a full security sweep of the building as a precaution and shut down part of Constitution Avenue, which runs in front of the courthouse, and all side streets.

"We're not going to play a game of roulette or craps out here with people's lives," Walsh said.

Evacuation of the courthouse occurred shortly before a hearing was to begin in the CIA leak case. The hearing began at 1:30 p.m., about an hour after the building reopened.