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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.
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?
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.
I can't believe people are saying to the effect of "only three people died, less than the deaths caused by normal crime." Surely there is a difference between those looking to maim hundreds of innocent people and the sum of everyday crime?
How can people be so wishy-washy about this? A couple of complete assholes have just ruined hundreds of peoples' lives, and people feel conflicted about the manhunt that ended in their death and arrest?
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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.
Right; more people are killed by car accidents every day than by 20 snipers taking out people at random across the country. I say in that situation the police should ignore the snipers and go look for drunk drivers and speeding!
Frankly until terrorists are killing more people within the US than cancer and heart disease put together, I don't see much point going after it.
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