> What's the difference between these two statements?
One describes the policy. Which is what they want to achieve. They want to achieve that a hotel employee checks on every room every 24 hour.
The other describes that they don't trust their usual implementation during BlackHat/DefCon.
> which is probably for the best, given that any would-be domestic terrorist would surely know how to use Google and find this information too.
The whole thing provides probabilistic protection anyway. (Also known as a security theatre, if you want to be uncharitable.) A determined attacker will appear as a model hotel guest up until the point they want to attack. Then they wait until housekeeping is done with their room and move their weapons in the room only after. Hotels are full of people moving luggage around at all hours so this won't be suspicious to anyone.
The policy will probably catch some would be attackers (the dumb ones). It will also probably uncover a lot more drug overdoses/suicides/murders/sudden heart attack victims, several days earlier than they would be uncovered otherwise.
I bet that for every Stephen Paddock found there is at least a hundred "oops this room has a dead person in it for some reason".
> One describes the policy. Which is what they want to achieve. They want to achieve that a hotel employee checks on every room every 24 hour.
I find it puzzling how you (and all the other commenters here) accept this rule like sheeps. Normally, you US citizens cannot stop boasting how the USA is supposedly "the land of the free".
So don't take this personally, I'm replying to this as to all the others that appear like they find it totally normal that some security guy or hotel cleaning can enter a rented room. Every 24 hours, or at all. It's not normal. And IMHO not even needed / helpful.
No 24h check will ever hinder a mass-shooter. The criminal would just wait until room cleaning made their job, then go to his car and get the big suitcase with all the guns and ammunition one can buy entirely too easy in the US. And then he can shot from his room, minutes after this compulsory do-nothing 24h "security" check.
Here, were I am (Germany), things are completely different.
First, it's not so easy to get weapons. Not even at gun exhibitions. That in itself helps tremendously getting a less violent society.
Second, here we have the right, upheld by courts, that a hotel tenant can make the hotel not enter his room. A "do not disturb" sign is everything that is needed. If you want, you can look it up under "Frankfurter Landgerichts aus dem Jahr 2009 (AZ 2-19 O 153/08)".
Sure, there are other rulings that landlords (including hoteliers) have under some circumstances the right to enter a property they rented out. Like fire, or water pipe broken. Actual, imminent danger. Not hypothetical danger! But they even cannot get a general "you can always enter" term signed, that would be null and void over here.
The more free private entities are from government oversight, the more carefully they have to read contracts. For example, even the US is not quite so free as to allow people to sell their organs. If it were, citizens would have to carefully read room rental contracts at hotels, to make sure there were no conditions which included forfeiture of a kidney.
(FWIW, I'm now living in Germany, and it's significantly more relaxing with a bit less freedom. There's definitely different tradeoffs which make more sense for different people).
The most illuminating example is, unfortunately, in a controversial area; so please take this as descriptive rather than normative: Back in my city in America, when I heard a loud bang in the night, 4/5 of the time it was fireworks or a car backfiring, and 1/5 of the time it was gunfire. I found an expended 9mm round while walking my dog one morning. It wasn't even a particularly dangerous city, by American standards; but every year I had a 3/100k chance of being killed by gunfire; even accidentally, even while just sitting in my living room.
Here in Germany, I'm not magically immune to crime, but the base rates of gun crime are so low that I never worry about loud bangs. That comes at the cost of the freedom granted by the Second Amendment in America.
Another, slightly less salient & serious example: Germany has strict laws about public photography. Take a look at any "embarrassing pratfalls" or "annoying Karens" video reel: They may be US-weighted, but they come from all over the world--but not Germany. The lack of freedom to document the people around you on video trades off with the security of knowing you can slip on a banana peel without being known worldwide as "the banana peel guy."
> you (and all the other commenters here) accept this rule like sheeps
What do you mean "accept this rule like sheeps"? Do you expect violent resistance? Do you want to sue someone because a security guy poked their head in the room for 30s? How would "I do not accept this rule like sheeps" look like in your opinion? How far would you go resisting it?
> you US citizens
Wrong assumption.
> So don't take this personally,
I won't. Clearly you don't know anything about me.
> appear like they find it totally normal
I can explain what is a fact of life (they have this policy) without expressing my opinion about it.
> No 24h check will ever hinder a mass-shooter.
As clearly stated in my comment.
> The criminal would just wait until room cleaning made their job, then go to his car and get the big suitcase with all the guns and ammunition one can buy entirely too easy in the US. And then he can shot from his room, minutes after this compulsory do-nothing 24h "security" check.
Yes. Exactly this is described in my comment.
> that would be null and void over here.
Thank you. Interesting addition to the conversation about how it is in Germany. Different places have wildly different legal norms and expectations.
For me it is hard o get upset about this either way. A hotel is a different type of arrangement than renting.
One describes the policy. Which is what they want to achieve. They want to achieve that a hotel employee checks on every room every 24 hour.
The other describes that they don't trust their usual implementation during BlackHat/DefCon.
> which is probably for the best, given that any would-be domestic terrorist would surely know how to use Google and find this information too.
The whole thing provides probabilistic protection anyway. (Also known as a security theatre, if you want to be uncharitable.) A determined attacker will appear as a model hotel guest up until the point they want to attack. Then they wait until housekeeping is done with their room and move their weapons in the room only after. Hotels are full of people moving luggage around at all hours so this won't be suspicious to anyone.
The policy will probably catch some would be attackers (the dumb ones). It will also probably uncover a lot more drug overdoses/suicides/murders/sudden heart attack victims, several days earlier than they would be uncovered otherwise.
I bet that for every Stephen Paddock found there is at least a hundred "oops this room has a dead person in it for some reason".