It sounds like we are headed to the capital of the world's largest military dictatorship, not Boston.

The security measures are becoming more and more evident as the convention nears. At the FleetCenter, the authorities began a full security lockdown Saturday morning in a driving rainstorm. A double barrier of steel fencing was erected around the convention hall. Private cars and trucks were banned from the nearby network of streets called the Bullfinch Triangle. National Guardsmen in camouflage were stationed at the nearby Haymarket subway stop. In the latest addition to the security plan, eight Air Force F-16 fighter jets have been called in to patrol the skies.

In the well-to-do Beacon Hill neighborhood, street garbage cans have been removed from their metal hoops to prevent bombs from being hidden, leaving residents to complain that trash is piling up. On Thursday, transit police began random inspections of handbags on the subways. The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a warning that some unknown group might want to attack the television satellite transmission trucks setting up around the FleetCenter and at picturesque locations like Faneuil Hall, but gave no specifics. At 8 p.m. on Friday, the last train for the duration of the convention left North Station, which serves 25,000 commuters a day.

Coast Guard and police patrol boats will cruise the harbor. The police have equipped themselves with exotic devices like a gun that fires clusters of ball-shaped containers of pepper irritant for dispersing crowds.

This should be interesting. Chicago in 1968 may be tame by comparison. We should probably bring flak jackets. The best advice may be this, coming from a downtown paralegal:

You should definitely wear sneakers, because with all that's going on you never know when you might have to walk a lot.