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Bruce Schneier On the Marathon Bomber Manhunt
Should Boston have been put in a state of lockdown on Friday as police chased down Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? Pragmatic Bruce Schneier writes on his blog: "I generally give the police a lot of tactical leeway in times like this. The very armed and very dangerous suspects warranted extraordinary treatment. They were perfectly capable of killing again, taking hostages, planting more bombs -- and we didn't know the extent of the plot or the group. That's why I didn't object to the massive police dragnet, the city-wide lock down, and so on." Schneier links to some passionate counterarguments, though. It doesn't escape the originator of a recurring movie plot terrorism contest that the Boston events of yesterday were just "the sort of thing that pretty much only happens in the movies."
All this showed to me sadly was how quickly people are willing to give up their own freedoms because of fear. This is a sad slippery slope we are on. While this was a horrible event, only three people died, and the whole city got shut down. Three. How long till they lockdown the city because two people die. How long untill they lockdown the city because a gunshot was heard. Untill they come into our homes to look for suspects. And the worst part is, no one will even say "No". We will welcome them with open arms, and claim that we dont mind being being forced to stay indoors, to let police into our houses whenever they want, to be under constant surveillance, because there are "madmen" on the loose and we have to catch them. Its like a mass case of stockholm syndrome.
Two devices went off, police were looking for two suspects... there was no particularly strong evidence that there would be dozens of people out there or something. I suspect it comes down to just the word "terrorism" causing people to refuse to apply the kind of logic they normally apply.
I've lived in neighborhoods where people were shot, and the gunman was an fugitive. It was more likely in those cases that there could be wider involvement of a larger group, because often people who perpetrate shootings are gang members. While it's rare, occasionally these fugitive scenarios actually do end up in a shootout that involves a dozen people. Yet, the police don't lock down all of Atlanta every other week just in case.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The authorities said "please stay inside, don't go to work or anything". Most people did, either because of the perceived danger (desperate fugitive with explosives and guns and a willingness, even perhaps a desire, to use them against random citizens) or because they wanted to do what little they could to help authorities catch the perpetrators of the marathon bombings.
Nobody got arrested for not staying inside. It was a temporary measure, and a ruinously expensive one in economic terms -- so they're not likely to do this again except in equally extreme situations.
If two people with makeshift bombs can cause a major city to go on lockdown, isn't the message to terrorists that a multi-city disruption -- say, shutting down from Boston to Philly -- wouldn't take very many people or that much coordination?
America is a land of fear. It is easy to paralyze us, we are already just short of paralyzed by fear all the time anyway.
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In the movies, there would be a large conspiracy and very intelligent, well-organized criminals with a very siginficant motive for profit or power.
In this case, it was a couple of really stupid punk-asses with lots of pent up anger and no real higher agenda other than "we want hurt stoopid Americans". They did nothing to mask their identities or cover their tracks, and they're not likely representing any larger organization.
If it was a movie, it would be a pretty awful one.
The guy was found when they let people out of their houses and one of them stumbled across the guy. If they had let people out earlier would he have been found earlier? Funny thing is if they had waited until night to lift the ban he might have slipped away.
What's more consider what happened. The people hid from one militant guy. Compare this to 1776 when British militants walked on a town. Citizens decided to gather together to oppose them despite the risk to their lives (, and many did die ). Boy how this country has changed.
The worst outcome of this isn't necessarily that Boston got locked down, although that's definitely worth discussing.
The worst outcome is that lockdowns are becoming more and more common, far out of proportion to the actual risk. Once it becomes normal to lock down an entire city in response to a very real and significant threat, it then becomes much easier to feel normal about it when we lock down an entire college campus because a mentally ill homeless person made some faculty or staff uncomfortable. It becomes normal to do what some community colleges in my area are doing, which is to have an active shooter drill once a year in which adult college students are locked in a dark room for 30 minutes and told they can't leave. (This passive response is, BTW, not at all in line with what experts recommend in such a situation.)
Destroying 30 minutes of instruction for a whole campus and violating students' civil rights is way out of proportion to the risk of getting killed by an active shooter, which for a college student is on the order of 1 in 300,000 per year. A college student's risk of being a victim of rape, robbery, or assault is about 1 in 100 per year, but we're uncomfortable dealing with that -- in fact, there is a wave of lawsuits right now by women who say their rights were violated when their colleges refused to take action about their being raped.
To use an analogy suggested by Scheneier, active shooters and the marathon bombing are like shark attacks, and other violent crimes are like dog bites. The number of people killed by dogs every year is much, much greater than the number killed by sharks. But we find shark attacks much more psychologically compelling.
Find free books.
This entire thing was ridiculous and made so by the police. 2 men shut down one of the largest cities on earth. These sorts of attacks happen all the time most other parts of the world. Imagine living in Israel or Syria. If they ever get 20 guys again like 9/11 and they all just get rifles and randomly start shooting people all over the country like the Washington sniper did this countries going to become a police state if the police react like this. More people were killed in Massachusetts in the past week in car accidents then by these bombers. Where was the police presence to prevent those fatalities? Oh, that's right, they were busy firing thousands of rounds at a 2 guys in a residential neighborhood.
And if a bunch of innocent people got killed in the crossfire, people would be screaming "Why didn't they do something to protect the people?!?"
Once these bozos were on the run they were generally no more dangerous than some bankrobbers. For a bankrobber you would never shut down a major city. Now these evil doers are thinking, "Oh look we can shut down Western cities at a whim."
Keep in mind that by shutting the city down they made it safer at least as much through traffic deaths as through any risk these guys posed. Expand that math and you could have this bombing every day of the year and you don't touch the carnage of traffic deaths, or medical mistakes, or accidental overdoses, or even workplace accidents.
So yes these bombings are awful and the people doing them should be hunted down but the moment people start to toss away their liberties to get a few punks is like hunting houseflies with a shotgun. You aren't going to be happy with the results.
The key here is never to use the end justifies the means. What you have to ask is does the end outweigh the means? Effectively declaring marshal law does not outweigh the need to arrest two punks. If they had a nuke then yes, few would disagree with that equation. People talk about slippery slopes so lets look at an equivalent crime of different motivation. Two punks rob a bank. There is a shootout and some people are killed and many are hit by stray bullets. The perps get away. Do you shut down the city? What if they ended up with "strong" evidence that they had fled to NYC; do you then shut down NYC? Do you toss out civil rights? Don't we have laws that allow for the police to run about sirens blaring, search warrants in hand, to generally hunt a few punks on the run down?
"Please stay indoors and off the roads unless you have a really good reason."
"May we search your house for him?"
Holy shit! The horrors!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
One thing about getting everyone to stay in their homes is that they reduced random innocents from getting attacked by scared civilians. Oh no, that guy has a hat and looks vaguely like that security image *blam blam* oh wait, that was the mailman. Woops.
I guess the feds are worrying about a hypothetical chain "Chechens - Russia - WMD".
I am not informed enough to judge their merits.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/40/
Almost ten times as many died in a Baghdad bombing.
But the only reason the Boston count was not higher than Baghdad was that there were so many medical personal literally right there at the scene.
The Boston attack was in a much more crowded area, during an event with a lot more media coverage. Why is it any surprise it would get more coverage? It does in fact deserve more coverage, as tragic as those other things are.
That said the Texas explosion does deserve more coverage than it is getting, and more sympathy from political leaders than it has.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Boston Police Dept. shut down the entire city except for the doughtnut shops.
http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/20/security-theater-martial-law-and-a-tale-that-trumps-every-cop-and-donut-joke-youve-ever-heard/
http://www.boston.com/businessupdates/2013/04/19/cops-request-dunkin-donuts-stays-open/a981LXWXrfuZAAgnIM1YjL/story.html
Requesting that people stay at home for a day doesn't seem that Orwellian to me, given that the choice of whether to comply with this request was up to us. If you went out, your freedom to move around was only restricted by a few cordoned-off areas in Cambridge and Watertown, and a small possibility that you might get asked for ID. The only reason the request to stay inside worked was because almost everyone thought it was a reasonable thing to ask under the circumstances. If the suspect had gotten away, I don't think it would have worked today.
As for the risk - I think people don't realize the level of law enforcement presence - there were (according to reports) well over 1,000 heavily armed officers, most of them in Watertown, a city of 30,000 people. The risk of the suspect hurting anyone was probably minor compared to the risk of something going horribly wrong with all those officers running around. This may have been a massive over-reaction, but that's a different question - given that the officers *were* there, it was a dangerous situation. As the parent of a skinny teenager who could conceivably be mistaken for the suspect at enough of a distance, I may be particularly sensitive to this issue...
The blood of tyrants isn't as refreshing as it used to be?
First, the word lockdown is not appropriate. Police weren't out arresting folks for going outside. I live in Cambridge, and I think a lot of us affected thought of it kinda like a blizzard. I did go out during the day and saw kids playing basketball in the park and neighbors out talking with each other. Everyone was nervous, but we didn't feel like we were giving up any rights.
Second, the 'lockdown' was a result of a violent shootout that included explosives in a dense residential area and the escape of an armed and dangerous suspect who had killed an officer in cold blood. This wasn't because there were 2 'terrorists' on the loose. This was because there was a confirmed killer armed with bombs on the loose and last spotted a couple of miles away.
I think people should see those of us who 'sheltered in place' as doing what we could do to help the police catch him. We're an intelligent city that understands common sense. They don't want us to get hurt, so for our protection (what the police are there for) they warned us to stay inside. You also have the shutdown of all mass transportation, something that makes sense given the situation.
Finally, it was a Friday! The call to 'shelter in place' was given in the morning when we were all getting ready for work. What would you say? "Hey boss, sorry I can't make it today. Yeah the police say I shouldn't go out and besides the subway is closed." or "Well, I'm going to drive myself through an empty city and go to an empty office just to prove I have rights"
If two people with makeshift bombs can cause a major city to go on lockdown, isn't the message to terrorists that a multi-city disruption -- say, shutting down from Boston to Philly -- wouldn't take very many people or that much coordination?
But that lesson was already learned way back in 9/11. Terrorists already know they can do that.
However what you are forgetting is that they don't care about "disruption". Disruption is not fear, it is annoyance. Generally Islamic terrorists have a very clear goal; they want to kill as many "infidels" as possible.
In that sense another lesson was learned. A marathon seems to be a great target with huge crowds, but because there are so many medical people and other security forces around, it's hard to carry off any kind of attack that actually kills very many people.
Even with some fairly powerful explosives, a packed crowd, and no forewarning of the authorities they only killed three people. Yes they wounded many more and sadly a lot of people lost limbs, but again that is not the goal of terrorism, they want death.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
America is a land of fear.
That is not at all true. Americans simply have good common sense in times of crisis. Just look at how many people were running to HELP after the bombings, knowing there could be more.
It is easy to paralyze us
Not at all, we just have enough sense to know when it's a good time to stand still when we see a snake, long enough for some other guy to get a rock...
"Look before you Leap" is not a motto that derives from fear, but from experience that we'd like facts before acting unreasonably.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If a terrorist REALLY wants to cause the US lots of pain, here's how to do it:
1. Go to Harvard and get a MBA
2. Get a job on Wall Street (Goldman Sachs, Morgan, etc ...) or Bank of America.
3. Fuck up America MORE than any bomb or planes into towers could EVER do!
4. Oh, Profit!
See dieing in a terrorist act isn't as scary to an American as losing their way of life - that's TERRIFYING! Losing their big houses, big cars, iStuff and cable TV would decimate Americans!!
Maybe, but notice that the fear was created, not by terrorist, but by:
1) Politicians scoring a cheap leadership point, and
2) The media pushing ads with a "good" story,
This might very well have been way out of proportions.
I think the politicians eat it because it was great chance to show leadership, and the media loved the idea of doing live coverage for hours on end...
End result, more fear... but I'm not sure it was the terrorist who scared you.
There is an interesting idea here. The next set of people don't even have to be terrorists; they could be pseudo-terrorists, where the very goal of the operation is using a society's Law Enforcement against that society itself, as Denial of Service. Make people think think you're a terrorist, but where the actual emotion evoked is annoyance or irritation, not fear.
Not for bad work that might have happened.
And this isn't a slippery slope. Footage could be from people's phones. So therefore there will be FURTHER reason to demand your right to film in a public place.
It would be a slippery slope IF they asked that they be given access to any and all CCTV as a matter of course.
But USING the CCTVs and other footage available in this? No, that's police work.
....the government is failing and degrading itself in regards to what the founders established, foresaw and wrote in the Declaration of Independence.
What part of our security are we supposed to be trading for what other part? Or is it really who's security is being protected? ...... (who? Who next?) security. Security of liberty and freedom of the people sacrificed for the security of brute force government protection industry?
I.e. Financial Retirement Security (S.S.) compromised for warfare against
See the big picture and realize leading and provoking terrorism for corporate benefits does not support the various securities of the people.
Its very clear the government is for themselves ignoring the people, the taxpayers who pays for them.
Why should it take one or two to suppress the rights for the many and the many required to defend the rights, liberties and DUTIES the founders established for the people? The answer is simple when you realize who's benefit the government is acting for. Hint: its not the people!
A bully would only be wise to expect retaliation. Maybe the governments should stop being the worlds bully. And given the amount of money the governments of the world spend on warfare... you can easily see who is the biggest bully. And its seems to be that addiction is running out of others to bully and turning in on itself, or its people, as we have seen happen in other countries.
This is about "SECURITY" but is not the question really "Who's security?" The peoples or the bullies?
For those who do not yet know, political effort is now underway to regulate black powder using this event of a supposed two as an excuse.... just another in the continuing effort to disarm the people and violate the second amendment and lets not forget why the second amendment was written... or should it just be recognized its not a degradation of what the founders establish but a verification the founders were absolutely correct in foresight of the degradation of a government?
Has it actually been proven they set the bombs? Have you actually seen any images of the suspects with guns or bombs? The scary thing for me that the president said the most important question for him was why these two did this. This implies they have been proven guilty. If you were in a foreign country and your image appeared on tv as the main suspect of an act of terror, would you hand yourself in of hide? There is something very dodgy going on here and that is plainly obvious without even needing to start looking up some of the crazy conspiracy theories.
If we outlaw pressure cookers,
only outlaws will have pressure cookers.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Your failure is that you are using your brain to think. You are trying to see logic in the reasonings of people who have long since left logic behind. These kiddies like jazman just want to see the world burn. They don't see the zombie survival guide as a joke or a parallel, they dream of it. Wish for it.
People who whine about the cost of this lockdown have no functioning brain cells left. What costs? Business are not going to cancel contracts for one missed day of work. If people didn't go to the shops today, they will shop tomorrow. And lets say people bought one less can of coke, bought one less coffee. Lets say the economy "lost"... but wait. If I got 10 bucks "saved" because of the lockdown, I will just spend those 10 bucks tomorrow. Just see the street parties that broke out.
This is proven each year in any country that has uncertain weather. If people don't spend their money on the terasses in April, they spend it in May. The economy survives such small upsets. Only kiddies who know nothing of the real world think these things have any impact at all. But that won't stop them from faking statistics to show this.
There is most likely one statistic that will however reflect the effect the lockdown really had.
9 months from now, I predict a small increase in the number of babies born in Boston. Because people don't stop spending just because of a lockdown. But they do fuck more if there is nothing else to do.
The system worked. No, it isn't perfect but only a fool wishes for a perfect system. The system will continue to be imperfect but in a few years there will be a slight blip on the electricity grid as a mad dog is removed from the system. Other mad dogs will probably rise up and the system will deal with. The system we are all part of, good and bad. Even the little boys who wish to see the world burn because over millenia nothing else has proven to be so succesful. There are other systems on this planet. Somehow kiddies like jazman find a ton of excuses not to go live there, in their paradises. They curse the system they do not want to leave.
Is that they didn't marandize (Is that a word?) him when they took him into custody claiming national security precedence or something like that. I doubt he will get off or set free but I wonder what the fallout is.
Merely posting to correct a mis-mod. Sorry!
Patience is a virtue, but haste is my life.
Option 1: Police/govt over-react, nothing bad happens: Grumbling about over reaction
Option 2: Police/govt over-react, something bad still happens: Grumbling that still not enough was done
Option 3: Police/govt under-react, nothing bad happens: No problem
Option 4: Police/govt under-react, another attack happens: Everyone "responsible" as good as burnt alive at stake
In light of the potential outcome of option 4 (which based on what these psychopaths did before and during capture was altogether probable) risk-averse structures, like governments, will choose to over-react every time.
Commenters whining about loss of freedom clearly don't live in Boston. It took five days from the bombings to having both suspects off the street. No civilians were hurt after the bombings. One police officer lost his life, and one was critically wounded in their efforts to bring the suspects to justice. If you are not impressed by that, you're not human. That's why, in Boston, we were applauding law enforcement, not bitching about some imaginary freedoms that you wont actually lose. Shut up already.
bio->bi_end_io(bio, error);
Is care ful about what he say in th public eye and I don't blame him. As long as u keep pumping out the encryption to the public Bruce, it's all good.
cops parading out millions of dollars of military equipment just to try and apprehend a single 19 year old.
Image after image of retards taking cover behind plastic garbage cans and displaying absolutely ridiculous defensive postures, all while dressed to the nines like a bunch of tools.
They've shown the entire world just how easy it is to lock down an entire city and create massive financial burdens on a city. 330 million bucks per day to keep Boston on lockdown. The disproportionate response (witnessed first hand) was laughable and completely unnecessary, but retards in fly over states will claim it was needed for freedom! These same morons will gladly march onto the trains to be taken to camps (for their safety) and thank the overweight goon squads that do it.
Laughable faggotry was on display but since America is now a nation of giant manchildren faggots it is just the response we should expect.
I wonder what the physical reqs are for boston swat, 2 dozen donuts in under a minute and the ability to walk around the block at a brisk pace?
Fuck this gay earth
The 5th amendment is being ignored. Are US citizens willing to give up the 5th amendment? There are no ifs, ands, buts, or hair-splitting exceptions here. This is cut-and-dried case of whether we're willing to do away with the 5th amendment or not. The guy, heinousness of the crime notwithstanding, has been arrested without Miranda rights and is being interrogated with no lawyer present.
Should the constitutional rights of US citizens be preserved or should they be waived when the government wants to waive them?
Shut up, Ringo.
The Boston Marathon 'Explosions' will be one for the psychology books in starting in three months from now.
1) there is still lack of evidence that the explosions were bombs, seriously, lack of evidence and that will equate to lack of admissible evidence for a grand jury to ponder.
2) Suspects. The video feeds used by blogs then City Police do not show bombs, explosive devices, intent to harm, premeditated criminal actions. For all we know the 'suspects' were falsely implicated by innuendo and nothing more.
3) Eye 'witness.' Uncorroborated. Mental state of the 'witness' is confused given the events of the day.
4) Mayor, City Staff and Police. Total anarchy caused by Mayor. Police panic lead to the death of an MIT Building Security Guard (carrying unauthorized arms and munitions and who was not trained in firearms usage), and a suspect by incompetent firearms usage of Police.
5) Second suspect wounded, critically, by incompetent firearms usage of Police.
6) Given the above, if the 'explosions' were from crudely fashioned explosive devices, then the real suspects are already safely out of the country.
So much for the 'hero' bloggers, 'hero' Police, 'hero' Mayor and 'hero' President and Staff. Just a lot of jerk posers trying to 'heros.'
Might want to try re-reading history. The Nazis took over doing exactly what Obama is doing right now. Lindsay Graham and John McCain are mouthpieces for fascism. Too bad people like you are too fucking blind and stupid to see it.
All this showed to me sadly was how quickly people are willing to give up their own freedoms because of fear. This is a sad slippery slope we are on
This is NOT the real slippery slope
The REAL slippery slope is in letting people like those two terrorists into our country
They have no business in the United States in the first place
And when the FBI got the tip from Russia that the elder brother was involved with Islamic extremism they merely "interview" that guy, and then set him free
In this case, the FBI acted not in the interest of the country, but rather, the FBI suspect Russia more than the possibility that that guy could be one of the planted cell for Islamic terrorism in the USA
How many more of similar Islamic terrorists are inside USA now ???
Why did we let them in, in the first place ?????
Too many of the liberals think that "education can solve the problem" --- without understanding that the TRUE NATURE OF ISLAM --- which is, no matter how high a guy's has been educated, Islam will find a way to brainwash that person
Case in point, # 1:
ALL the terrorists who hijacked the planes in the 9/11 case were college educated
Case in point, #2:
That Islamic terrorist who shot dead our 13 soldier boys and wouded 29, inside Ford Hood, was a very highly educated person
If you guys truly understand the danger of Islam you would never be as naive as you are
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
This sort of action is typical in "may-issue" states, Canadian provinces and pretty much anywhere else in the so-called civililzed world where there is a culture of general deference to government in general.
Yes please massa gubbermint, take my rights away, just protect meeeeeeee!
THIS! Two guys with pressure cookers shut down a major american city, innocent American's were deprived of their 4th Amendment rights (just as one example, stripped naked guy) Endless pictures of paramilitary police and armored personell carriers roaming the streets of Boston Door to door searches by police that essentially are indistinguishable from military without search warrants brandishing firearms ... You tell me who won? It certainly isn't the American citizen.
He's just committed a successful terrorist attack against the United States. He's killed several people, maimed dozens more, and injured literally _hundreds_.
They need to question him to find out WHY HE DID THESE THINGS.
They need to question him to find out who taught him how to make bombs. Who radicalized him. Where he learned to shoot. Where he bought the supplies that were used to make the bombs. (Not just the two that were detonated on Monday; the police seized at least 7 more explosive devices from their residences during Thursday and Friday, and several explosive devices were _thrown at police_ during the gunfights and car chase).
They need to question him to find out what "like-minded" people he knows, in the U.S. or outside of it, who might be interested in committing similar acts.
They need any and every scrap of information they can get out of him, that might help them track down anyone else who contributed to this attack or might intend a similar attack in the future. Either here, or abroad. (If he knows some terrorists in Chechnya, then those are just as important to identify as domestic threats here).
In short, they have thousands of questions to ask this guy. Convicting him for these heinous acts will happen in due course, but that's not really what the questioning is about. They caught a real live terrorist, and its possible he might know some little details that are extremely valuable to counter-terrorism efforts.
For a good insight into the "modern" terrorist, the novel "The Secret Agent" by Joseph Conrad, published in 1907, nails it depressingly well (Gutenberg version here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/974).
you are full of crap, know you are full of crap, and rather than admit it, assume that everyone will decide that you aren't worth the time needed to look up a negative just to demonstrate what we already know.
The Boston events following the explosions at the conclusion of the Boston Marathon give clear and frightening examples of idiocy by the city government, police, President, DHS, DoJ (FBI) and the 'social network' bloggers who in a matter of 24 hours got two people killed, though one killed himself (Campus Security Guard masquerading as a City Police Office [a federal offense by the way]) when the firearm and flash-bang explosive he was caring with authorization or training in usage and safety discharged.
What grand ineptitude on such a public stage.
This is the real horror.
They didn't mandate it, they didn't arrest/shoot anyone on the street (there were some people out and about, go look it up). It is pretty standard to want people to stay in doors in a situation like that. Not often it happens to a whole city, but on a smaller scale.
One night, like at 2 in the morning, I saw a whole hots of police cars around. Mostly spread out in the mall near my condo complex but some on the road leading to it and so on. I was worried so I called and asked what was up. Their request to me was to stay inside, don't open my door, and that the officers on scene would let me know if I needed to go anywhere (they didn't).
They were looking for someone and that was made much easier if there weren't additional people out wandering around and if there wasn't someone who could become a potential hostage. They didn't tell me I had to stay in my house. I was free to go to my car and drive off, they just asked that I did.
There was no larger announcement because, well, it was 2 in the morning. I wouldn't have even noticed had I not woke up to go to the bathroom. However what they asked anyone who called in (I may have not been the only one) was to stay in your house, unless instructed to do something else.
It really makes a lot of sense.
You see a lot of it online, and on /. in particular. People like to hate on the US. They want to feel, for various reasons, that the US is just a shitty place to live and that it is really bad there. They like to whine and cry about everything being awful, everything being a bad thing, make it out to be a real dystopia. It's an anti-patriotism of sorts. If you look around online you can find sites where posters are the opposite, they talk about how amazingly awesome the US is all the time and for everything. They downplay all the bad, trumpet all the good (and sometimes make good up) that kind of thing. This is the reverse of that.
It is quite annoying as it shows not only a great level of ignorance but an astounding lack of perspective about the world. But it is what it is.
If the cops are searching for a bombing suspect, and lock down a suburb/building/campus, etc. and then search everything and everyone in the lockdown area, then this is a violation of the rights of the people. However, if in the course of said search, the cops overlook things like drugs, child porn, anything completely unrelated to the crime at hand, and just let it go, then I can see a balance struck between an emergency situation unfolding with violence against the public at large. If this is merely a pretext for busting everyone searched for any infraction discovered, then I have problems with it.
I understand the human element, one cannot usually un-see what is discovered. But if it is treated in the appropriate manner, with the appropriate discretion, then this is the price we sometimes pay. If someone is murdered and I witness it, I don't want to not talk to the police because I'm worried about a dime bag in my pocket. Shades of grey and proportionate response to real world problems.
There just happened to be a drill requiring the presence of snipers on roofs, the presence of men from Craft International (motto 'Violence does solve problems') near where one of the bombs was planted and exploded, a man running away from the explosion whilst everyone else was crouching in shock (i.e. he was experienced in reacting to explosions), a photo possibly showing the pressure cooker before it exploded - man, it is big. A Craft man with a radioactivity monitor in his hand near one explosion. Craft men guarding a grey haired white guy who has two bags, standing at the edge of the finish line bomb blast zone - before the explosion.
timothy has taken a quote from Schneier's blog post, and then put a link to that blog post on a random sentence inside that quote.
That is incredibly confusing.
Should Boston have been put in a state of lockdown on Friday as police chased down Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? Pragmatic Bruce Schneier writes on his blog:
NO !!!
typical gung-ho lunatic cowboy police and Swat teams firing willy-nilly at anything that moves..also lobbing Flash-Grenade incendry bombs at a profusely bleeding injured "suspect bomber"
this has nothing to do with policing ..and more to do with trying to kill the only Patsy witness to the truth thats left
The only purpose that the blogger social community served in the misidentification of the Boston Marathon disturbance 'suspects' was that of a lynch mob.
Remember the last Batman movie, Batman Rises ?
By analogy:
The 'Chem-head' Dr. Jonathan Crane, serves as the Mayor of Boston,
The 'Jury' is the lynch mob bloggers, are just a mad dog lynch mob looking for something to kill (which they don't have training in) and get 'hero' status from the ignorants.
The 'Force' i.e. Bane and his thugs serves as the Police (just a bunch of drunk duck hunters discharging their shotguns when a twig snaps).
And the Peanut Gallery loved it in the end.
No hero here, only criminals.
And NYT reports the 'Biblical' FBI wants to 'investigate' the suspect's Russian past. [Laugh] If the FBI were serious, or had balls, they would take a short walk to the Department of Treasure and investigate the Obama campaign funds and UN fund that are being directed to terrorist organizations in the North Caucasus region (yeah that has been going on even during Johnny [GW] Bush). [Laugh]
The Tsarnaevs' recruitment by US intelligence as penetration agents against terrorist networks in southern Russia explains some otherwise baffling features of the event:
1. An elite American college in Cambridge admitted younger brother Dzhokhar and granted him a $2,500 scholarship, without subjecting him to the exceptionally stiff standard conditions of admission. This may be explained by his older brother Tamerlan demanding this privilege for his kid brother in part payment for recruitment.
2. When in 2011, a âoeforeign governmentâ (Russian intelligence) asked the FBI to screen Tamerlan for suspected ties to Caucasian Wahhabist cells during a period in which they had begun pledging allegiance to al Qaeda, the agency, it was officially revealed, found nothing incriminating against him and let him go after a short interview.
He was not placed under surveillance. Neither was there any attempt to hide the fact that he paid a long visit to Russia last year and on his return began promoting radical Islam on social media.
Yet even after the Boston marathon bombings, when law enforcement agencies, heavily reinforced by federal and state personnel, desperately hunted the perpetrators, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was never mentioned as a possible suspect
3. Friday, four days after the twin explosions at the marathon finishing line, the FBI released footage of Suspect No. 1 in a black hat and Suspect No. 2 in a white hat walking briskly away from the crime scene, and appealed to the public to help the authorities identify the pair.
http://www.debka.com/article/22914/The-Tsarnaev-brothers-were-double-agents-who-decoyed-US-into-terror-trap
Casteism
Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston, what a joke. So his 'employment plan' is to turn Boston into the 'Nalins' of da North. What a looser.
This give more evidence in the 'explosions' at the Boston Marathon: Street side Meth labs.
Explosion 1: a fight breaks out amongst the 'customers' and the 'boiler' explodes. The 'customers' ? are those killed and injured.
Explosion 2: a 'da Cops be cum'n turn it off quick' so the boiler there did not cause intense injuries as the customers were running to the hills.
Wonder how all the lynch mob bloggers are going to feel when they realize they got 5 people killed, Mayor Meth go Ape and Paralyzes the city then the duck hunter police commence shooting up the place.
Ha ha Boston Bloggers kiss my ass.
I was initially very skeptical about the city-wide lockdown until it was reported on every news outlet that the reason for the wider city "lockdown", was to minimize the strain on law enforcement and other services that would otherwise have to respond to matters unrelated to capturing the suspects. Seems pretty sensible to me. It's still to soon to know for sure but I haven't heard of any abuses by law enforcement in areas located far away from the action.
I'm getting a little sick of Schneier's post hoc, benefit of hindsight finger-wagging. Where was he when all this was going down? He was watching it on TV like most of the rest of us. Of course his theory fits the facts now that the worst has passed. What sticks in my craw is that he supplies these obvious solutions after the fact, then tut-tuts us all for not having seen his brilliance in the first place. How many of his precious, self-advertising blog posts on this topic were made while the events were in progress? One, and it was to advertise some things he'd written. He has nothing practical or helpful to say on these matters, only self-evident, if-only-you-knew advice long after everything has been laid out by others. Sure, now that we know it was probably just two guys with a screw loose, we can marvel at how afraid we were and how reclusive we became. But at the time, nobody knew what was going on. Oh, except Schneier, eh?
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
The 'Suspects' were misidentified by the social community bloggers and the Mayor Meth and Police Fucker Duckers bought it.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57580642-93/facial-recognition-tech-played-no-role-in-iding-bomb-suspects/
I got a .308 for each of the slashfucker heads.
See you in hell, fuckers.
And what the fuck is the pice of dog shit that calls itself Bruce Schneier, .55 round for u fucker.
State and federal authorities have caught criminals that have killed far more people than these two brothers have without shredding the 4th Amendment or enforcing what was basically martial law across one of America's most populous cities.
It's not "do little to nothing" vs "Defcon 4", it's losing our shit vs the sort of manhunt that's done hundreds of times a year in varying locations across the country.
Do they have evidence that these 'suspects', now suspect, planted the bombs? I missed that on TV if they showed it. They definitely went out of their way to nab them, understandably, if they did plant those bombs. That is for sure. I have believed all along that whoever did it had a bunch of eyes clearing the way, but the FBI checked all the cell phone communication to hear what was being communicated and by who, right?
that was the stupidest comment i have read on slashdot in years. amazing. please change.
Sorry - none of that makes phrenology or other shit about ethnic groups being prone to violence "scientific". My own background in materials science doesn't tell me this - the fucking dictionary and common usage of the entire English speaking world tells me this.
Since you are a grown man you really should be ashamed of the Nazi bullshit you are spewing out for the kids to see. Yes Nazi does apply - change one word of your above stream of shit and you get: What does need to happen is that the political Left needs to learn about Jews and wake up to the Truths about it - do it through the entire stream of shit and even you should be able to see the road to hell you are calling for. Your parents would be disgusted that you've forgotten what happened in the war they lived through.
Racially the Palestinians are identical, as is obvious, so I don't see why you think you can get out of pretending you didn't mean what you wrote. Also your bit about pretending Islam is a form of politics is a ridiculous waste of words since you cannot possibly be that stupid as to believe it, especially with Syria etc going on now. Falling back on calling me an anti-semite for my cut and paste example of your own words is hilarious - that was to illustrate that the line you are pushing is equivalent to anti-semitism and you should know better. Face it, despite your ego from being good at one thing (could have done without you wanking it all over this page with that bio) you know fuck all about this topic and you've been sucked in by a bunch of white power fuckwits that want to wipe out everyone that just happens to be a different branch of Judaism to Christianity.
The "political islam" you rant about is bringing parts of the middle east away from military dictatorships and closer to western style democracies - haven't you paid attention to the news in the last couple of years? Those places haven't ended up like Iran but instead more like "political christians" such as the ones that founded the USA. What really happened in Egypt, Libya etc is the mosques were the only legal places for large gatherings so that's were the politics happened, nobody else had a hope of getting organised and getting their shit together. Give it a few years and those places will probably look a lot more politically like Turkey - they are already a million miles away from Iran's theocracy and show no signs of going that way. So your "political islam" IMHO makes no more sense than saying "political christians".