The price of freedom?

If you want to argue that operations like this are rarely flawless, that's fine.

Just don't tell me this one was flawless when we had two bombs go off, and a cop executed before they were captured.

That's no criticism of the cops on the ground. But, the questions have to be asked, and I'm sure they are being asked by higher ups in the FBI right now.

 

I never said this operation was flawless but I think it was about as close to flawless as you can get in a free society while still maintaining the basic tenets of said freedom and allowing people to live their lives.
Could the FBI have prevented this? Maybe. But how would they have done so? Short of locking up every potential threat in Gitmo (Which I thought we were trying to get away from?), I don't see how they could have stopped these brothers from planting these bombs at this race.
One of the risks you run into when living in a free society is that people are humans and have free will and, sometimes, that free will means they will do evil things.
You just have to hope at that point that you can minimize the damage and loss of life as you attempt to track them down and bring them to justice. I believe police and law enforcement officers did just that and I choose to focus on how much terror was prevented by their actions instead of how much terror was allowed to occur because of their supposed missteps.

 

This guy was put on the FBI's radar two years ago. He wasn't just some anonymous American who we had no reason to suspect.

He made a bomb according to the instructions from Inspire magazine. Now, if we aren't capturing the IP Address of every person who visits that site, and paying some attention to them, then we're doing something wrong.

His YouTube account makes it apparent he had radical sympathies. Data mining needs to be able to pick up on that, and bring up a red flag, by linking this page to the earlier warning we had about this guy. His travel records too, when paired with the other info, should have brought some attention to him.

He brought at least one other person -- his younger brother -- into his operation. It will come out soon whether he talked about his plans to anyone else, or if he emailed anyone overseas.

But, to act like he should not have been on anyone's radar is B.S. There were reasons to look at this guy, and keep an eye on him.

 

Wouldn't have engaged in that debate here. I rarely post here these days and can't recall ever wading into a political debate because it is like watching grade-school kids argue at recess and then pout after the teacher tells them to pipe down and behave.

 

But the 9/11 memos weren't specific enough, right?

 

Were they? Did we have Mohammed Atta's name ahead of time?

We were warned about this specific guy.

 

Seriously?
Seriously?
The FBI had suspicions about him TWO YEARS AGO and they were supposed to keep and eye on him for what, two years, in the hope that he would slip up and commit a crime?
Are you serious?
I hope you're not serious.
Do you have any idea how many people are in this country and how many could be looked at as a potential threat? Shit, half the people on this board should be investigated by law enforcement officials for simply speaking their mind and criticizing the government (myself included).
If the FBI spent two years tracking and following each and every person who could potentially pose a threat to the country, they'd have to track and following millions of people and erode the civil liberties of the 99.999999994 percent of them who are just law-abiding citizens.
And plenty of people go online to research things that could land them in hot water. What sites would you peg as "must track these citizens" and who makes the decision?
I'm curious myself to do an online search on how to make a bomb because I'm interested to see how readily available the information is but I'm never going to do that search simply because I'm paranoid I'd end up on some list.
The idea that the FBI should have known these brothers were going to commit this crime is ludicrous.

 

Apparently the FBI is supposed to conduct 24-hour surveillance of anyone who visits Inspire's website. Because there's obviously no way to mask one's IP address.

 

This is just yet another reason to profile.

 

Oh, it's just YF stirring shit cos the wrong party's in the White House.

 

If you haven't done anything wrong, why blithely accept being treated like a suspect?

 

For the greater good and because three minutes of feeling uncomfortable is a fair trade for a lifetime of feeling secure.