Explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon

[Paelos]

Everyone in the media or politics uses tragedy to push their agenda. This will be no different. Nor will the next one.

[KallDrexx]

In other news, facial recognition technology didn't help find the suspects

They also mentioned the only reason they released official photos was to try and stop social media from pinning the wrong people

[Ghambit]

....
They also mentioned the only reason they released official photos was to try and stop social media from pinning the wrong people

If they think the population will sit around and wait for a large, ponderous, multi-agency task force to make a decision and act on it, they're sorely mistaken.  This whole thing was fuckin botched by the Feds from the get-go anyways; sorry if that stings, but that's the reality... and they've essentially done nothing but clean up the messes from two-steps behind.

Riddle me this.  If these guys were such a damned "danger" to the population, why'd it take them 3 days to release any usable information?  That's way too long.  Fuckin kid went back to class, with an arsenal of explosives at home mind you, like it never happened.  That's just not gonna cut it, sorry... also goes against most procedures local PD's use to find someone - e.g. they want to catch someone, they put out an APB immediately using whatever resources they have.  They dont get "cute" about it as it's not worth the risk.

The guardian article was interesting to me because it analyzes the fine line between "normal" violence and "terrorism."  In normal violence, public safety typically does whatever it can as quickly as possible to eliminate the threat.  In "terrorism" however, federal agencies are more interested in the larger picture - and take their time.  Fuck that.  Violence is violence and they should be addressed the same once committed.

That ars technica article just confirms what most people have thought, that the govt. essentially sat on useful information with a couple of very dangerous people running around lose.  That pisses me off to no end.  So if it takes next-gen media to get them off their arses, more power to the media.  Carry on.

[Arthur_Parker]

Poor taste.
          

Yeah, if you look further, author is US citizen living in US, writes

But Londoners, who endured IRA terror for years, might be forgiven for thinking that America over-reacted just a tad to the goings-on in Boston. They're right – and then some.

in a British paper which sure seems like it was written to imply it was British opinion, I suspect he wrote it just to fuel the US gun debate and further his own ego.

Edit to add, as might not make the news in the US, British Public opinion on events in Boston http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22236946

[Abagadro]

If they had rushed info out that was wrong, it could have been worse.  Misidentifying the suspect can be worse than not identifying it as the resources get diverted and an innocent person could end up being arrested/killed.

The "social media" did fuck-all in this whole thing except put out misinformation and muck things up.  It's a reality of today's world, but your continued pimping of it is pretty stupid in light of how incorrect it was on pretty much everything.

[Goumindong]

If they think the population will sit around and wait for a large, ponderous, multi-agency task force to make a decision and act on it, they're sorely mistaken.  This whole thing was fuckin botched by the Feds from the get-go anyways; sorry if that stings, but that's the reality... and they've essentially done nothing but clean up the messes from two-steps behind.

I am sorry, are you retarded? The FBI and local police were the only ones who did anything. Social Media wasn't "two steps ahead" they were "twenty steps in the wrong fucking direction, indicting innocent people and potentially causing more violence"

Fuck that noise.

Anyone else find this OpEd from the Guardian a bit offensive?

Not trying to stir the pot here, but how does this shit even get past screening?

It does seem kind of offensive. The situation revolving around their capture wasn't something that could easily be contained and, if it had gotten out of hand, would have involved many many deaths.

I mean London shut down after the bus/subway bombings right? Well this was basically at a point where we were chasing suspects who had the capability to do something like that if things got out of hand. Of course the city shut down. Its not worth him getting to a subway and blowing it up in rush hour.

[Tale]

Anyone else find this OpEd from the Guardian a bit offensive?

Not trying to stir the pot here, but how does this shit even get past screening?

No. Having lived safely and freely into my 40s in the UK and Australia where guns and shootings are extremely rare, I do not find it offensive. I feel we should ask exactly this about the USA after this event. I find it bizarre that you find it offensive. I am not trying to rile you up, I am answering your question from the point of view of someone who would read a British newspaper.

[edit: typo, need new keyboard]

[MediumHigh]

To be frank, terrorism is non-discriminating violence, while 99% of gun violence is discriminating. When someone dies to a gun, most of the time, they were the target or living in a crime infested neighborhood to begin with. "Middle Class" americans take great pains to avoid such neighborhoods, and thus no one cares how many people die due to guns unless someone decides to open fire where people feel safe. Same with terrorism, most peoples basic defense of getting as far away from the ghetto as possible generally doesn't work all too well when some nutcase wants to prove a point by targeting where you feel safe.

[HaemishM]

Anyone else find this OpEd from the Guardian a bit offensive?

Not trying to stir the pot here, but how does this shit even get past screening?

Offensive, but appropo. 

[Margalis]

It's like Ghambit lives in some sort of alternate reality where events played out exactly the opposite as they did in ours.

Edit: As far as "why freak out about terrorism and not guns" the answers are pretty obvious if you think for a few seconds, and the question is no more interesting than "why freak out about guns instead of AIDS in Africa?"

[Chimpy]

It's like Ghambit lives in some sort of alternate reality

That sums up everything right there.

[Ghambit]

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."   

I think you guys are misunderstanding my point.  I'm not saying social media is some kind of better solution to anything we've got now, I'm not even saying it should be used directly (that'd just be outright assinine).  What I AM saying is there are many cases where Public Safety needs to disseminate information quicker and more definitively, both so the public can react safely, AND to curtail false assumption from the hive mind.

Frankly I'm a bit surprised you guys can just sit here and take your medicine given the facts of how things went down.  I see a slew of problems and places for improvement.  So I'm not all like 'Murica fuck yah this time, though it ended on a relatively positive note.

[Goumindong]

How things went down?

The FBI had a suspect within 3 days and had apprehended them on the 4th.

[MahrinSkel]

That being said, the FBI doesn't seem to have known who they were until they had one of them on the slab.  The key is in how/why that MIT campus cop got shot, since that's what set off the dominoes.  If they hadn't been throwing bombs/grenades out the window, we might still be looking for the identity of the bombers.

--Dave

[Goumindong]

That being said, the FBI doesn't seem to have known who they were until they had one of them on the slab.  The key is in how/why that MIT campus cop got shot, since that's what set off the dominoes.  If they hadn't been throwing bombs/grenades out the window, we might still be looking for the identity of the bombers.

--Dave

But why would they be expected to?

[Venkman]

The article was an opportunistic self-aggrandizement using the age old method of false equivalency.

This was particularly dumb:

Americans still allow themselves to be easily and willingly cowed by the "threat" of terrorism.

We shut a whole city down for a day and threw 9,000+ security types at this. This isn't "willingly cowed". This is "fuck you, we're all in this together".

The freakout happened because we thought it was another 9/11. It only turned out to be two kids possibly indoctrinated or possibly just amping up Columbine. But we didn't know that on Monday or Tuesday. And whose to say all of the things that went into finding these kids would have happened without all the rest of the ancillary things that went on?

I don't criticize the need for a full accounting of all events. Everyone including the boat owner (you see blood on the boat and walk towards it?!) will be analyzing this every which way. I'm just critizing self-serving articles like the above that in the pursuit of trying to ask a question, end up asking the wrong ones, and not caring.

[Abagadro]

That being said, the FBI doesn't seem to have known who they were until they had one of them on the slab.  The key is in how/why that MIT campus cop got shot, since that's what set off the dominoes.  If they hadn't been throwing bombs/grenades out the window, we might still be looking for the identity of the bombers.

--Dave

They walked up to his car and shot him.   They then carjacked a guy, flat out told him they were the bombers, let him go (huh?), then drove around with the guy's cellphone still on and in the car.  They were tracked and when engaged all hell broke loose.

These guys were not exactly master criminals.

[schild]

We shut a whole city down for a day and threw 9,000+ security types at this. This isn't "willingly cowed". This is "fuck you, we're all in this together".

Shutting a city down is not "Fuck you,we're all in this together." There is literally no argument that could be made to say that shutting down the city is a rational response. There is no argument that can be made that says they thought it was another 9/11. Shutting down a city is in fact the definition of being cowed by terrorism and paranoid that the worst has yet to come.

[MahrinSkel]

We shut a whole city down for a day and threw 9,000+ security types at this. This isn't "willingly cowed". This is "fuck you, we're all in this together".

Shutting a city down is not "Fuck you,we're all in this together." There is literally no argument that could be made to say that shutting down the city is a rational response. There is no argument that can be made that says they thought it was another 9/11. Shutting down a city is in fact the definition of being cowed by terrorism and paranoid that the worst has yet to come.

I might agree with that if it had been the response to the bombing, but the only thing they cancelled in response to the bombing was the baseball games.  It was the active manhunt for a guy that had already escaped from pursuit three times that triggered the lockdown.  Nobody wanted to be the one that said "he got away because we didn't want to X".

--Dave

[Goumindong]

We shut a whole city down for a day and threw 9,000+ security types at this. This isn't "willingly cowed". This is "fuck you, we're all in this together".

Shutting a city down is not "Fuck you,we're all in this together." There is literally no argument that could be made to say that shutting down the city is a rational response. There is no argument that can be made that says they thought it was another 9/11. Shutting down a city is in fact the definition of being cowed by terrorism and paranoid that the worst has yet to come.

There was a guy on the loose who did not have any inhibitions against throwing/placing bombs into crowded places. Its not like the city shut down because there was some amorphous threat.

[Paelos]

I'm also pretty sure the goal of terrorism wasn't to shut down a city for a few hours while the guys who did it were caught. The effect would have been infinitely more terrifying if they were still at large.

[KallDrexx]

The freakout happened because we thought it was another 9/11. It only turned out to be two kids possibly indoctrinated or possibly just amping up Columbine. But we didn't know that on Monday or Tuesday. And whose to say all of the things that went into finding these kids would have happened without all the rest of the ancillary things that went on?

If you are referring to the Boston lockdown though (which is the course of the thread atm), when Boston was locked down it wasn't because they thought it was another 9/11.  The lockdown happened *after* they knew it was just two kids, one of which was already dead

[Hoax]

We americans humans like to be hypocritical over what deaths we want to sympathize with and what deaths we shrug off.

Fixed that for ya. That article is pretty much shit through and through. Its not all wrong but its not interesting or illuminating in any way.

People are bitching about the lockdown? Forget that the real question is how the fuck did the younger one get away from the giant fucking shoot out? Anyone have any idea because that was always the real mindfuck. They unloaded 20 rounds and bombs were thrown and he what, got back into the car and ran over his brother and got away???

[MahrinSkel]

It was dark, the cops weren't quite sure who they were looking for, and the brother's suicide charge was probably intended to give him a chance to escape.  They grabbed up the random guy and thought they had both, and by the time they figured out they didn't the kid was out of the net.

--Dave

[Paelos]

People are bitching about the lockdown?

To some, the only thing better than a tragedy is arm-chair quarterbacking the response.

[apocrypha]

Anyone else find this OpEd from the Guardian a bit offensive?

Not trying to stir the pot here, but how does this shit even get past screening?

So over a decade of massive expenditure on law enforcement, counter-terrorism and surveillance and multiple laws enacted in the war on terrorism and it all fails to stop a couple of teenagers with some pressure cookers?

30,000 gun deaths every year and your politicians fail to enact even the most timid, basic laws to check the backgrounds of people wanting to buy guns?

And you're offended by an article in The Guardian pointing out your national cognitive dissonance? You people are mentally damaged and no longer capable of rational thought. Your gun lobby, media and politicians have irreparably harmed your mental processes.

[Arthur_Parker]

It's an excuse to write an article about gun control, there's an obvious case for US gun control that stands on it's own merits, it's really stupid to call an effective anti-terrorist operation an overreaction as a lead into it.

Is the guy against finding a cure for rare cancers unless they find a cure for common ones first?

E:typo

[apocrypha]

So explain exactly what the War on Terror has achieved?

US citizens now have far, far less liberty than they used to and no apparent increase in safety. This (probably) wasn't a highly organised AQ terror cell, it was a couple of teenagers with pressure cooker bombs, and the fantastically huge security state failed to stop them. Even locking down the entire city of Boston didn't catch that guy, he was found by someone going for a smoke in his back yard *after* the lockdown was lifted!

Your cancer analogy is flawed because what's actually happening in the US is the opposite - the rare, hard to treat cancers are being focused on, at huge cost, and the simple, easy to treat diseases are being ignored because there's a powerful group that makes a load of money out of letting them run rampant.

[Ironwood]

We shut a whole city down for a day and threw 9,000+ security types at this. This isn't "willingly cowed". This is "fuck you, we're all in this together".

Shutting a city down is not "Fuck you,we're all in this together." There is literally no argument that could be made to say that shutting down the city is a rational response. There is no argument that can be made that says they thought it was another 9/11. Shutting down a city is in fact the definition of being cowed by terrorism and paranoid that the worst has yet to come.

Thank God for You.  Never thought I'd be saying that.

So much easier when a Mod says what you really want to.

[Ironwood]

So explain exactly what the War on Terror has achieved?

US citizens now have far, far less liberty than they used to and no apparent increase in safety. This (probably) wasn't a highly organised AQ terror cell, it was a couple of teenagers with pressure cooker bombs, and the fantastically huge security state failed to stop them. Even locking down the entire city of Boston didn't catch that guy, he was found by someone going for a smoke in his back yard *after* the lockdown was lifted!

Your cancer analogy is flawed because what's actually happening in the US is the opposite - the rare, hard to treat cancers are being focused on, at huge cost, and the simple, easy to treat diseases are being ignored because there's a powerful group that makes a load of money out of letting them run rampant.

And, with that, the thread needs moved....

[Arthur_Parker]

So explain exactly what the War on Terror has achieved?

WTF?  Two guys detonating bombs in a city won't be doing it anymore, that's a good thing.  A Guardian lecture from some American kid who probably won't know a Balaclava if someone shoved one up his arse and lit it, doesn't change that.

[Arthur_Parker]

We shut a whole city down for a day and threw 9,000+ security types at this. This isn't "willingly cowed". This is "fuck you, we're all in this together".

Shutting a city down is not "Fuck you,we're all in this together." There is literally no argument that could be made to say that shutting down the city is a rational response. There is no argument that can be made that says they thought it was another 9/11. Shutting down a city is in fact the definition of being cowed by terrorism and paranoid that the worst has yet to come.

Thank God for You.  Never thought I'd be saying that.

So much easier when a Mod says what you really want to.

I just assumed people were staying off the streets, and encouraged to do so, as having thousands of armed police running round looking for anyone "odd" is dangerous.

[Cyrrex]

We shut a whole city down for a day and threw 9,000+ security types at this. This isn't "willingly cowed". This is "fuck you, we're all in this together".

Shutting a city down is not "Fuck you,we're all in this together." There is literally no argument that could be made to say that shutting down the city is a rational response. There is no argument that can be made that says they thought it was another 9/11. Shutting down a city is in fact the definition of being cowed by terrorism and paranoid that the worst has yet to come.

Thank God for You.  Never thought I'd be saying that.

So much easier when a Mod says what you really want to.

I have to say that I agree.  When you shut down a major metropolitan city for a day?  That's the terrorists winning, even if that isn't their originally intended goal.  They scared the shit out of you and made you totally over-react.  It couldn't have been much more effective.  And not that it should be used as a the sole measurement, but can you fathom how much money it costs you to shut down Boston for a day? 

[Jeff Kelly]

The boston bombing showed a few things.

First and foremost: the kindness and goodwill of people that wasn't diminished in any way by the terrible events

The terrorists were caught by the police with standard police investigative procedures and "cop-on-the-street" methods. None of the fancy "war-on-terror" procedures like video surveillance or facial recognition, no federal terrorist database or watch-list did that it was honest police work by local law enforcement.
All the war-on-terror stuff did was add to the noise the investigators had to cut through.

In fact one of the terrorists was investigated by the FBI in 2011 after they had gotten a hint by a so far undisclosed foreign government but that fact didn't help any of the investigators in Boston at all since the FBI didn't follow up on that and the brothers actually weren't listed as potential threats or put under surveillance.

This was the latest in a long line of incidents that showed that traditional news is dead and that the internet or social media can't pick up the slack either. If you wanted information you were SOL, if you wanted conjecture and breathless babbeling by bleached blonde bobble-heads then cable news was for you. While CNN and Fox News lost what little reputatiion they still had left people on Twitter and Facebook posted live updates taken from police scanners and so directly endangered the lives of local law enforcement or could have tipped off one of the terrorists. Meanwhile sites like 4chan, 9gag or reddit ruined a few lives by incompetent amateur sleuthing and organising manhunts on innocent people. In fact one of the people incorrectly blamed for the attack is still missing as of today.

I'd have to agree with Schild and Ironwood. All of the procedures, technologies and tools introduced to combat terror were largely ineffective including the complete lockdown of a major metropolitan area. A witness put law enforcement on the trail of the terrorists (one of the people hurt in the explosion, who saw them plant the backpacks) and a witness told them where the second one was hiding after the lockdown had already been lifted.

This was a huge win for the Police and traditional detective work and a loss for the FBI, homeland security, in fact every agency tasked with preventing such attacks from happening. If billions of dollars in terror prevention budgets can't even stop two teenagers from building pressure cooker bombs and if local law enforcement is more effective in finding those terrorists than all of the FBIs and Homeland Securities with their fancy-schmancy high tech toys then people should ask whether all of the money given to them and - more importantly - all of the power given to them is really justified and necessary.

I feel sad for the people hurt and the lives lost and I feel angry that US federal law enforcement still claims that such terrorist attacks can be prevented by even more money, more technology and more leeway for them/less freedom for the people when in fact they couldn't do jack. The only effective measure would be to act in a way that people simply don't want to bomb you.

When the largest law enforcement and anti-terror budget in the world can't prevent such incidents then you simply can't prevent every such incident from happening. Not by more money, not by more investigative power, not by less liberty for the people.

I therefore don't see the need for taking away the bomber's right to remain silent, to counsel, to habeas corpus or to any of the other liberties provided to any defendant. He was caught by the Police and the criminal justice system will put him on trial and sentence him. I don't see why the agencies that couldn't even catch him should then get the opportunity to try and punish him or use him as an example as to why all the the reduced liberties and freedoms are necessary when in fact they weren't necessary nor effective nor even needed to catch him.

[Tale]

The article was an opportunistic self-aggrandizement using the age old method of false equivalency.

I don't see a "false equivalency" when a free press in a free country where guns are illegal calls the US batshit insane for allowing terrorists to legally arm themselves to the teeth, before they stage street gun battles with police.

When you're living in a country that almost never experiences the threat posed by a person with a gun, it is valid to consider street shootouts and mass shootings as one combined problem.

Between 2006 and early 2013:
- There were 25 shooting massacres in the USA (7 of those in 2012).
- There was 1 massacre with any weapon in the UK.

After the terrorists stopped shooting in Boston, you've had another shooting massacre in Seattle today (5 dead). Not to mention all the gun incidents that will no doubt have occurred across the USA without deaths.

The ease with which both terrorists and murderers can arm themselves in the USA occurs because of the same thing: the free-flowing sale of weapons. Many of us in the countries without widespread gun ownership see the problem as one and the same, and find it ironic that after a teenage terrorist is disarmed in an environment of fear, it's back to your regularly scheduled gun massacres but everyone somehow feels safer.