New York's Mayor Bloomberg can shoot down airplanes

The New York Police Department has given the city’s best-known billionaire one big, big gun.

Michael Bloomberg has presided over the city of New York for nearly a decade and with a big job like that comes big responsibility. Yes, there is the crime and the homeless and the grime and grit and of course the terrorists — but Bloomberg is prepared for it all. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said this week that Mayor Bloomberg has the authority to command the NYPD to strike down aircraft with a Barrett .50 caliber rifle RT reported last month that Kelly told the news program 60 Minutes that the city has severe antiterrorist capabilities that most of Manhattan wasn’t aware of, and when asked for specifics, revealed that they had the means to take down a plane. Soon insider sources leaked that the massive rifle under the watch of the NYPD is kept in a locked safe and, if deployed, can be mounted onto police helicopters.First, however, Bloomberg has to give them the thumbs up.Speaking at a City Council meeting, Kelly said this week that upon the development of any terror alert, Mayor Bloomberg would be “notified immediately” and would make “the final decision” in case of emergency. Earlier Kelly had told 60 Minutes that the circumstances that would call for cops to bring down an airplane would be “a very extreme situation.”What’s extreme in the eyes of the NYPD might not necessarily match up to others’ definition, however. In recent months it has been revealed that the Police Department of New York City has deployed undercover agents under the direction of a CIA operative to foreign nations in order to collect intelligence. Bloomberg has also approved an extensive surveillance system across the streets of New York that keeps an eye on seemingly everyone, all the time.Big brother is watching, for sure. And he is armed.