Subject: New York Stock Exchange Steps Up Security in Aftermath of AIDS Protest 
Date: Published: 10/11/89 (64 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    New York Stock Exchange Steps Up
    Security in Aftermath of AIDS Protest
    ----
    By William Power
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    NEW YORK -- The New York Stock Exchange is beefing up its
 security, nervous that 1960s-style protests could again cause
 commotion at the nation's center of capitalism.
    The exchange, according to several top traders, was highly
 embarrassed after a group of AIDS activists -- wearing fake
 badges reading "Bear Stearns" -- were able to infiltrate an
 off-limits area of the exchange on Sept. 14.  The activists
 chained themselves to a platform overlooking the trading
 floor and sounded a horn to drown out the opening bell.  The
 demonstration briefly disrupted trading.
    Three days earlier, according to a spokesman for the
 demonstrators, two of them entered the exchange undetected
 for a "test run" of the demonstration.  The activists were
 protesting the high cost of the AZT drug used by patients who
 have acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
    According to traders and exchange officials, the Big Board
 was dumbfounded that non-traders so easily entered the
 trading floor and mingled among traders.  The possible
 problems with such a security breach are immense for an
 exchange that routinely hosts presidents and chief executive
 officers.  There have been cases at other exchanges in which
 "fake" traders have been able to actually execute trades.
    Until the Sept. 14 incident, the Big Board hadn't been
 host to such a successful demonstration since Abbie Hoffman
 and a dozen other demonstators threw $1 bills onto the
 trading floor from the visitors' gallery on Aug. 24, 1967,
 causing havoc.  After that incident, the Big Board installed
 windows on the visitors' gallery.
    According to one top Big Board trader, the Sept. 14
 incident "scared the exchange a lot" and sparked comparisons
 to the 1967 Abbie Hoffman incident.
    Wayne Richardson, the Big Board's security head, declined
 to comment on the new security changes.  But an exchange
 spokeswoman, saying she was speaking for Mr. Richardson, said
 security has been "tightened considerably" and "we will
 probably be making further changes to tighten security."
    Prior to the incident, traders came and went without their
 photo identifications always being checked, traders said.  Now
 such IDs are being checked.  Also, the exchange is requiring
 unannounced guests to walk through an X-ray machine before
 they can enter certain parts of the exchange building.  The
 AIDS protesters entered carrying a metal chain; five
 protesters attached themselves to a platform with the chain
 and two took pictures.
    Peter Staley, a former bond trader who is the spokesman
 for ACT UP, which staged the Sept. 14 demonstration, conceded
 his group probably would have been foiled if X-ray machines
 were being used.  He said there was no particular reason why
 the fake badges his group used read Bear Stearns.

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