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Adam Lanza Destroyed His Computer Before Rampage
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Here's some breaking news I saw MSNBC this morning that I haven't seen reported anywhere in the print media yet. NBC reporter Pete Williams reported on Chuck Todd's The Daily Rundown that (police) 'had been hopeful that they could extract some information from the computer at (Lanza's) home. He was very into computers. Before he left his mother's house on the morning that he shot his mother while she was sleeping, he damaged extensively his computer. He took the hard drive out, pulled the disk out, and did a lot of damage to it,' said Williams. 'It's not clear that (police) are going to be able to extract any information or not.' It has previously been reported that Lanza left no online footprint. Police had been eager to examine Lanza's computer in hopes of determining a motive in his killings or finding records of purchases of firearms and ammunition. 'If he visited certain websites, they are going to glean whatever information they can from that and see what it means,' said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly. 'Does he have friends he communicates with online? Was there a fight with somebody?'"
This should be a reminder to all of us to be that friend he probably didn't have. I'd have killed myself in college if it weren't for a few online friends. Skearrit and Zenobia, that's you. It's WoW now instead of MUDs, but people are the same.
Indeed, if there were any signs to be gleaned from his computer, it doesn't matter since they'll be ignored anyway
One would hope so.
The alternative is even more government intrusion into your computers and communications.
The fact that he did destroy them suggests he knew there was stuff on them which might be of use to the police. Since he obviously intended to take his own life, none of this could be used against him personally. One has to wonder if he had fellow travelers in his journey to insanity that he thought he could protect via destruction.
I would imagine his ISP is surrendering logs at this very moment.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I just read this entire thread and find it fascinating. There are some well thought out arguments on both sides. One thing I have not seen mentioned is the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Guard_(Israel) . This is a volunteer force, administered by the police. One of the areas they protect is schools and kindergartens. The volunteers are screened, get training, and provide a first line of defense until the troops show up. They have over 50,000 in the force out of a population of 7.7 million. If we had the same percentage in the USA we would have over 20 million people helping with security and crime.
I'm interested in what this community thinks. Would/Could this work in the USA? Would you volunteer for 12 hours/month?
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."