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Bruce Schneier On the Marathon Bomber Manhunt

Posted by timothy on from the for-your-own-protection-forever-and-ever-amen dept.

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."

13 of 604 comments (clear)

  1. Slippery slope. by dadelbunts · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Slippery slope. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I live in Boston and I don't see what "freedoms" I just gave up. This was a one-time deal; it does not have to be the standard response for every event. If a police lockdown became overkill and burdensome for some set of circumstances, and possibly encouraging to terrorists, then residents would let their officials know that they need to lighten up in the future. This was not one of those times.

      Sometimes you guys seem so intent on spinning off on your political abstractions that common sense is ignored. The lockdown made it a lot easier for law enforcement to do their jobs without worrying about crowd control, collateral damage, the suspect blending into the street scene, etc. And the police did do an excellent job.

    2. Re:Slippery slope. by femtobyte · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Averaging over the whole country for the whole year, you are (as you noted) far, far more likely to be killed by something "mundane" like a car. However, on the day and in the neighborhood where a desperate fugitive (who's already shown a propensity for killing people) is loose, the odds are significantly shifted. Shutting down too large an area (e.g. a whole gigantic city) might be on the excessive side (where the specific danger is "lost in the noise" of regular daily harms); however, extra caution in a narrower area (e.g. locking down a university campus or suburb) may be well-justified in terms of risk mitigation, where the risk of being harmed within that specific geographic and time window is drastically higher than the long-term regional average risks of daily living.

    3. Re: Slippery slope. by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Civil panic would be a horrible way to "honor" the death of one of my loved ones. Speaking only for myself -- the only person I can speak for -- I would find no offense, and perhaps even some small glimmer of comfort, in my community and country opting to follow the British war slogan: "Keep calm, and carry on".

      You do know that the British took shelter during air raids, don't you? Apparently not - you would apparently consider that a cop out and civil panic. Unless you have a very good reason (antiaircraft crew, civil defense staff) you take shelter during the air raid. Unless you have a very good reason, you stay away from gun battles and man hunts. You don't keep running the buses and offer the terrorist a gift of 60 hostages to soak up the ball bearings in his suicide vest!

      Here is a hint: For the ordinary person, the real test comes after the event is over. Do you return to normal life? Do you hold the next marathon? Do you ride the bus again if a suicide bomber blew himself up on your bus route yesterday. The test is not do you keep running the busses in a area of an active manhunt and firefight so you can have another memorial service after the detonation of another suicide vest.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  2. Slippery slope? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Slippery slope? by misexistentialist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Since when is "ruinously expensive" an obstacle for the government? A couple of months ago Massachusetts locked down the roads of the entire state, threatening drivers with arrest, for a fairly typical winter storm. This kind of thing is already becoming the new normal, just like it's become normal for police to be indistinguishable from combat soldiers.

    2. Re:Slippery slope? by Holi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would hardly say what the Boston PD and FBI did were the actions of a trigger happy police force. All in all it was a text book example of correct police work. They stayed on target and solved this case in record time. It was the media who gave the worst show. So let's not blame the authorities on the failure of the media.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    3. Re:Slippery slope? by alen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      because there are always some morons who go out into extreme weather conditions and then it costs lots of money to rescue these morons or clean up the mess after they die on the road

    4. Re:Slippery slope? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just to be clear, "text book correct police work" is to chase a suspect through the night in a car, have them escape, lock down an entire city (not just the area they escaped, the entire city including public transport and air travel) except for dunkin donuts, conduct completely fruitless door to door searches all day long, finally admit you aren't getting anywhere and then let the citizens find your suspect for you?

    5. Re:Slippery slope? by femtobyte · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I doubt a whole day's economic output was actually destroyed. Certainly, there was some loss --- but a lot of economic activity just ends up being moved to the day(s) after. If you can't buy groceries on one day, your family probably doesn't eat a day's less of food; you just make a slightly bigger grocery run the next day. Goods scheduled to be delivered aren't tossed in a pile and incinerated. Yes, there will be marginal inefficiencies created, but I suspect that far less than (annual economic output)/365 was lost.

    6. Re:Slippery slope? by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have to agree the Boston PD acted rationally and with the exception of not reading him his Miranda (somebody needs to be FIRED for screwing that up) they acted VERY professionally.

      For an example of cops more dangerous than the bad guy see the LAPD when that former cop was shooting cops, how many innocent people did they shoot again? 3? 4? I lost count it was bad enough that bloggers in the area were saying if you were a black man or drove a blue truck you had better stay indoors because they were emptying the gun first THEN seeing if it was the guy. Compared to that thumbs up Boston PD.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  3. Oh the iirony. by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

     

  4. Re:Home of the Fearful by kestasjk · · Score: 5, Insightful
    As a non-American I find this weird:
    • A couple of people execute a plan to blow hundreds of innocent athlete/spectators' limbs off,
    • The police use technology to work with the public to catch/kill them in a matter of days with no additional casualties,
    • Some Americans then go wallow in self-hatred over either
      • How scared they are of the police intruding on their freedom,
      • Or how easily scared they are.

    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?

    --
    // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);