The price of freedom?

As someone who lives a short drive away from where all this went down, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that I would have welcomed law enforcement officials in my home with open arms and ZERO concern about my liberties at the height of this crisis because the pros of a police search to find this guy outweighed the cons of essentially losing my privacy for a few minutes.
When there is a strong enough public concern, an action like this is not only justifiable but necessary. I would have no problem with letting officers ask any questions they wanted and search throughout my residence because I have faith in what they would be there for and confidence that I'm innocent and not doing anything that would get me in trouble anyway.
I applaud people for raising their concerns about this as I think we can never be too careful in matters of civil liberties but I don't see the supposed slippery slope that would (potentially) arise by condoning this type of behavior in the midst of a maybe once a decade type of manhunt.

 

Ugh. Do you not recognize the quote?

She said it in the aftermath of the underpants bomber's failed attempt to blow up an airliner. (Another case where we were warned ahead of time about the perpetrator.)

And, this case played out much the same way.

The FBI didn't keep an eye on him. Intelligence didn't pick up on the brothers and what they were planning, or that they apparently read Inspire magazine in their leisure time.

They didn't stop the brothers from planting a bomb.

They couldn't identify them from photos, even thought they had interviewed him/them.

The public identified them, and the public found the younger brother.

But, yeah, other than that, good job.

 

It's easy to criticize the police for not being able to prevent this ... provided you're totally OK with stripping away the basic tenets of living in a free society.
By all accounts, these brothers were well assimilated members of our society and the only way the FBI would have kept them on their radar would have been to profile them to the extent that it eroded on their personal freedoms and that's fine since these guys did (allegedly) deserve it but that kind of justification sets a dangerous trap for the literally countless other "suspicious" individuals who aren't guilty of anything but not being white Christians in this country.

 

Good grief you could not be more wrong. Well, I suppose you could label the cops hapless saps, too.

This is the real world. Suspects, for a variety of reasons, evade and elude law enforcement every day, in every corner of the world. When they do so it is not automatically a sign of shoddy police work or anything else.

The case wasn't resolved with the firefight that night. It wasn't the end of the drama. The final score hadn't been determined. The police brought down one suspect and wounded the second.

Yes, the second suspect escaped capture that night. You keep pointing to the fact it took them 24 hours to find him. Really, a whopping 24 hours? That is failure? Are you sure? How does it compare to other similar cases? I'm sure you have the data on hand.

What window would have been acceptable to you or good enough to label it good police work? Two hours after the firefight? Four? Eight? Twelve?

They wounded him. Their presence apparently prevented him from leaving the area and escaping. They were prudent -- and sly -- in backing off last night and then got a tip. They brought him in -- alive -- so he can provide valuable intel.

If that's is failure/poor work I'd love to hear your minimum requirements for a successful operation.

 

You've seen Minority Report too many times.

 

My momma used to tell me if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide....so search baby search.

 

C'mon. A successful operation would be one in which they were prevented from detonating their bombs.

(And, you know, we've had several instances where the FBI supplied inert bombs to folks, and arrested them once they were placed. And, we often get a reaction of, "oh, those guys were no threat. They were hapless, and would have never been able to carry out a plan without the help of the FBI." Well, I think this case disproves that. Though, I bet we would have heard the same thing in regards to these two if the FBI did have an informant who had helped them thwart this operation.)

But, even after they succeeded in planting their bombs, the fact that the FBI couldn't identify them -- or even think to check in with the suspected radical Chechen in their community -- from their photos, resulted in the MIT cop being executed. (And another cop being shot.)

That's not what I would characterize as a flawless operation.

 

I think YankeeFan's post and the original post in this thread should be pinned somewhere, side-by-side.

One expresses concern about surrendering certain rights, an understandable concern, though one with which I don't agree.

The other suggests 24/7 invasion privacy to prevent a crime before it happens.

 

This whole criticizing of the police force reeks to me as a larger scale instance of readers calling to complain about the coverage of their local prep football team.
It's easy to sit back and point to the things "you" would have done in that situation but unless you're in the situation and know the specifics, you're talking out of your ass.

 

Just curious were you one of those who criticized George Bush for letting Bin Laden escape Tora Bora?

 

So if I walk into a Walmart right now and stab five people, it's the fault of Rhode Island's law enforcement officials because they should have pegged that I was likely to do so as a disgruntled Patriots fan?
What about these two, besides their skin color and religion, would lead you to believe they'd be capable of committing this crime? I'm curious because it sure seems like you believe the FBI should have KNOWN they were going to do this when all accounts are that these two, and especially the younger brother, seemed like everyday, normal americans.

 

Boom was arguing the cops were inept because they allowed the second suspect to evade AFTER the bombing, AFTER the firefight.

We were debating whether law enforcement handled the chase/search well or not so well.

Every comment I made was in that context and that context alone until you injected the idea of preventing the bombing.