BBC: Apec security leaves bitter taste in Sydney

Like many, he is incensed by what he regards as the needlessly aggressive and restrictive policing, which carried a heftier security price tag than the 16-day-long Olympics and led to the construction of the 5km ( three mile) “great wall of Sydney”.
“I’m so embarrassed and annoyed. Where was the sense of proportion? We replaced Olympic volunteers with riot squads,” he says.
“Somebody in the security operation got very carried away with their own self-importance, and nobody in the state or federal government counterbalanced them.
“It was totally and utterly disproportionate.”
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For many Sydneysiders, comedians from the already popular The Chasers War on Everything have become folk heroes – they managed to breach the million-dollar security set-up with a few shiny black hire cars, some wrap-around sunglasses, a few fake passes, a colour printer and a handful of bonnet-mounted Canadian and Australian flags.
Almost 5,000 New South Wales police officers, 1,500 defence personnel, 450 federal police, teams of sharp-shooters, patrol boats zipping across the harbour, Black Helicopters swooping above – all upstaged by 11 members of a TV comedy show.