Homeless Man finds Freedom Tower Plans - In the Trash

Homeless Man finds Freedom Tower Plans - In the Trash

news.yahoo.com

The man brought the Freedom Tower plans to the New York Post, which says the 150-page schematic is marked: "Secure Document — Confidential."

The documents are dated Oct. 5, 2007. They contain plans for each floor, the thickness of the concrete-core wall, and the location of air ducts, elevators, electrical systems and support columns.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is a little disgusting. I guess it illustrates the compassion of those rebuilding the site and an utter lack of responsibility to ensure security in the new building.

I hope no one else got a hold of these.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I just read about this... so unbelievable. I can't see how someone could accidently do something like that. It almost seems like the plans were 'made to be found'.

Don't ask me why, it's just that I cant believe someone or a group or people could be so dumb.

They should give the homeless guy a reward for finding the plans and letting the rest of us know that the builders of the freedom tower want people to know all the top secret stuff going into building it

Originally posted by Finn1916
They should give the homeless guy a reward for finding the plans and letting the rest of us know that the builders of the freedom tower want people to know all the top secret stuff going into building it

They really should, but we know they won't. Hopefully some ordinary people in the city will donate food or money to him.



And "Freedom Tower" retains it's position at #1 on the list of stupidest building names.

WOW
I don't even know what to say.
I guess its a good thing this homeless person was not a miscreant or a bad person like the media would like you to believe. I wouldn't be surprised if the poor sod was veteran or a home owner 4 months ago.

The same happened recently with the MI5 building in London.

Amazing MI5 security leak leaves us open to terror

I don't think theres any conspiracy here or that they were intentionaly placed to be found. There is always examples of carelessness with sensitive documents and laptops in the news.

Someone has been stupid enough to not file or dispose of these properly, but i would'nt say it's a conspiracy.

I'd be more concerned if they said the plans were missing and didn't know where they were!

I agree, the homeless guy should get a little something for this. Then again, i'd be suprised if they have'nt already labelled him as an enemy combatant and charged him with intent to use the plans for something!


CX.

115 Pages isn't probably even 1 floor of any building. I think it would be a pleminary print of some sort. Perhaps an overview.

mikell

I don't see what the big deal is. First, just because they are marked "confidential" doesn't mean they are top secret. It means they are confidential to the parties involved, due to bidding wars etc.

Also, I once asked the Port Aurthority for documents of the towers so I could study the collapses. The lady misunderstood me and sent me a link to the new freedom tower documents. I believe they are public knowledge as long as you can show that you are in the construction business.


Unless these are different plans altogether?

if someone wanted to see the blueprints of building,all they would have to do is go to the building department and ask to look at them,part of public record

Originally posted by Oldtimer2
if someone wanted to see the blueprints of building,all they would have to do is go to the building department and ask to look at them,part of public record

Unless those buildings are WTC 1,2 or 7. But, you are correct.

Is it possible that this man was paid off, or the plans were meant to be found? I mean what greater way to confirm the terrorist thread then exposing our own safety flaws. You see where I'm going with this?

Ungh... that had to have been the construction workers. The plans aren't being detailed in the states. So whoever dropped those plans carelessly had to be an American contractor.


One thing that does surprise the heck out of me though... the structural steel detailing for the freedom towers isn't finalized... aren't they jumping the gun by already having the electrical and ducting blueprints ready?

So, even if those are the official blueprints... they are still in the process of early revision. And hence, aren't going to be the same when the ducting and electrical work starts going in.


But regardless, kudos to the homeless guy.

Originally posted by johnsky
But regardless, kudos to the homeless guy.

Yeah, homeless guy is doing better detective work than some others....

It's not often that I see a topic on ATS which I have personal experience with but in this case I'd like to add to the discussion.

With a project of this size, There are hundreds of sub-contractors involved (if not thousands in this case). Each must have a set of master prints which they use to perform their function.

Within each of these contracted companies, a great number of departments within that organization each have additional sets of prints. From the project manager, to the document verification department (error checking), cost estimation and material procurement, code compliance, scheduling and logistics, production managment, etc., right on down to the individual employee who has his/her own subset of prints.

Revisions.

This is the bane of any manufacturing process. In a project like this, revisions to construction prints are daily. Errors are found, and changes are made. In some cases, a simple revision will cause thousands of pages of blueprints to be replaced (for example, while working for a small steel fabrication company which provide the structural steel for a project, I was tasked to revise all of our prints for a 6 story buisness complex after some changes had been made to meet code. When it was all said and done I had replaced nearly 3000 pages of blueprint). We were just one small part of the overall project.

Keep in mind that a project like this encompasses millions of pages of blueprint. Each day, changes take place which cause specific pages, subsets, or even entire sets of prints to become trash.

This set of prints which have been found should have been properly destroyed, no doubt. But I want you all to understand that there were many identical copies of this set out there. The fact that one of them managed to find it's way into a garbage can is not surprising to me at all. It simply illustrates the difficulty involved in keeping anything secret when it is by necessity, so widely distributed.




[edit on 18-4-2008 by SystemiK]

reply to post by SystemiK


Very well said and exactly what I was going to post. It's a fact of the design/build world that you have so very many eyes and hands that each get their own set of plans, partial set of plans, or just a quick set of redline edits given to a CADD operator or tech that there's no way to keep track of them all.

Also the guy who said "confidential" doesn't mean "top secret" is 100% correct. I'm a C.E. and pretty much anything that goes out of this office that isn't 100% completed, sealed, signed, and ready for the RFP process has a "Confidential" stamp and a "PRELIMINARY, NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION" stamp on it. Technically speaking those are merely a C.Y.A. measure by the designer to ensure that A) they don't get in hot water if somehow the firms bidding on the build get ahold of design information ahead of time to assist them with their bid because, after all, it did say "confidential" meaning the bidders aren't supposed to look at them even if they have a chance to and B) it demonstrates they are preliminary plans and all the checking & verifying for safety & such haven't yet been completed, so don't blame us if you jump the gun and something goes awry.

That said, the homeless guy deserves a cookie for at least doing what he believed was the right thing and turning them in to the authorities.

Looks like the chap stumbles across a dead drop!

Pretty poor dead drop technique, if it was just lying in trash...

en.wikipedia.org...

the guy is a dumpster diver who lucked out on a seemingly significant find,

he'd have prospered better by finding a fastidiously folded $5 bill
at the floor of a QuickieMart or Pantry or 7-11 store that the tweekers
always seem to drop as they're figgeting for the $1.

i find $5's all the time on the floor or caught in the racks by the checkout
cash register...

Originally posted by burdman30ott6
Also the guy who said "confidential" doesn't mean "top secret" is 100% correct. I'm a C.E. and pretty much anything that goes out of this office that isn't 100% completed, sealed, signed, and ready for the RFP process has a "Confidential" stamp and a "PRELIMINARY, NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION" stamp on it.

Same here. We put nothing out without the "preliminary" stamp on it.

Ours says:

Progress Print
X Not For Construction
X Preliminary
X Complete But Unchecked

Then the signature, date and our company logo.

BTW, C.E. here too. Nice to meet ya.

[edit on 4/18/2008 by Griff]

This is unreal! How incompetent can people be? I don't even understand how this could happen. What another slap in the face to the people affected by 9/11.

[edit on 18-4-2008 by Comsence2075]