The price of freedom?

I am glad they captured the bombers. Tickled to death.
Great. Awesome. Hooray for America. Wrap me up in the flag and cue Lee Greenwood.
But ...

Was it worth the price?

This the Boston Globe story.
In this story, it details the city lockdown, house-to-house searches and the lack of information provided to city officials.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/19/watertown-community-unaccustomed-violence-finds-itself-under-siege/4s2MuwvgQAestYSh2bAn6I/story.html


I think the photo says a lot.


I have nothing to hide, but I am not sure I would have allowed SWAT teams into my home to scare the shit out my kids in their attempt to capture this kid. Although apparently, I wouldn't have had a choice.

Again, I am glad this is over, but it's not. We need to seriously consider what we - as Americans - are going to allow in the pursuit of criminals as opposed to freedom and rights?

Martial Law?
Citywide Lockdown?
House-to-house searches?

What if these bombers had been average white Americans?
What if more than 3 people died?

Am I the only one concerned by the suspension of basic rights in pursuit of justice?

 

Evil, here we have an armed and extraordinarily dangerous fugitive on the loose. Telling the people of Watertown to stay indoors was simple common sense. Conducting a house to house search is routine procedure.
Once they decided to shut down the T (subway and bus system here), so that said dangerous fugitive couldn't find his way out of the search or worse, hijack a bus (might've had an explosive vest, his brother did), that effectively shut Boston down anyway.
Of course, it wasn't until they ended the lockdown and told people they could go outside that they got the tip that allowed them to find their fugitive.

 

I thought freedom was a $1.05.

 

Interesting column in Slate on how Eric Holder has muddied up Miranda Rights:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/04/dzhokhar_tsarnaev_and_miranda_rights_the_public_safety_exception_and_terrorism.html

"

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will not hear his Miranda rights before the FBI questions him Friday night. He will have to remember on his own that he has a right to a lawyer, and that anything he says can be used against him in court, because the government won’t tell him. This is an extension of a rule the Justice Department wrote for the FBI—without the oversight of any court—called the “public safety exception.”

There is one specific circumstance in which it makes sense to hold off on Miranda. It’s exactly what the name of the exception suggests. The police can interrogate a suspect without offering him the benefit of Miranda if he could have information that’s of urgent concern for public safety. That may or may not be the case with Tsarnaev. The problem is that Attorney General Eric Holder has stretched the law beyond that scenario. And that should trouble anyone who worries about the police railroading suspects, which can end in false confessions."

 

The law as I understand it Boom means that information gathered from the arrested suspect can be used against others, but cannot be brought against the suspect at trial. Which creates many opportunities for bungling. Holder is by far the weakest of Obama's Cabinet appointments.

 

In 2008 Obama talked a good game about restoring the rule of law and lost civil liberties but Eric Holder as his AG has not carried out that
edict.

 

If you want to look up something even scarier, look up "Continuity of Government."

It's basically a set of plans on how to remain in control during a national emergency, like a nuclear attack.

 

I don't know if it's reassuring or frightening who quickly the cops knew everything about these guys just a few hours after they got decent photos of them. They were caught on store cameras outside on the street. Then BAM, we knew who they were and they were tracked down almost immediately.

I don't commit crimes and don't have anything to hide. But, dang, Big Brother certainly is watching. From the drive through at McDonald's to the bank or the drug store, you can be tracked. While now it might not be that big of a deal, some day it could be.

 

And this will only increase. I don't know the answer to this; can the phone company go back 5 years and track my movements through its network of cell phone towers? Scary thought.

 

First of all, Evil, it's Martial Law. Can't believe we had eight responses to the first post on a journalism site without correcting that.
And I know some of you are extremely disappointed that the bombers weren't members of the Montana Militia or the Aryan Brotherhood. But I believe the same procedures would have been followed regardless of the national origin of the bombers.
What were the law enforcement agencies supposed to do? Wait for the guy to barge into someone's house and hold a family with children hostage?

 

I knew that didn't look right.

 

That's part of it ... A lot of this - if not all - was accomplished without the need for lockdown and a 20-block house-to-house search because of the shit, such as cameras, already in place.