Chaos at MIT

[matedog]

Oh, now isn't that nice. People are lining the streets cheering the caravan of heavy military vehicles in celebration. They've learned to love their police state that shut down the city for days! We will all learn to love our police state!


I don't even know what's what anymore.

I've thought that periodically throughout the day, the ease that people accepted/approved of martial law and the surveillance state. This hasn't been a good week for the Tea Party crowd.

And it only cost $⅓B in lost revenue to shut down the entirety of the 10th largest metropolitan area in the country for a whole day to find the little punk who was hiding out a mere 3-block radius from exactly where everyone thought he was hiding out last night, plus whatever expenses the show-of-force incurred. That's, like, 3 Baghdad days! It's practically cheap! And the drones hadn't even arrived yet!!!


SHUT DOWN ALL THE CITIES.

What should they have done?

[Dr. Medulla]

What should they have done?

Well, ask yourself what gets done during manhunts? That crazy ex-cop last month didn't shut down cities, nor did he Beltway snipers a decade ago. There is something more than a little disconcerting that a search for one guy justified shutting down everything. Or rather, that officials and the public seemed in sync in this de facto martial law rule. Is that what ten-plus years of War on Terror rhetoric has done to the national psyche?

Edit: And no Miranda rights read to him. Well, that's one avenue for his defence lawyer to pursue right off the bat.

[Flex]

They should have just drone striked him.

[Dr. Medulla]

They should have just drone striked him.

See, that's just being rash. You have to build up the public's tolerance to these things. Let them get used to drones being used for security reasons elsewhere and militarize the public sphere by more familiar and human means. Five, ten years down the line, the public will welcome the use of drones in the name of efficiency and not risking the lives of police.

[Rat Patrol]

What should they have done?

Well, ask yourself what gets done during manhunts? That crazy ex-cop last month didn't shut down cities, nor did he Beltway snipers a decade ago. There is something more than a little disconcerting that a search for one guy justified shutting down everything. Or rather, that officials and the public seemed in sync in this de facto martial law rule. Is that what ten-plus years of War on Terror rhetoric has done to the national psyche?

Edit: And no Miranda rights read to him. Well, that's one avenue for his defence lawyer to pursue right off the bat.

They knew exactly what path the brothers took from their home in Inman Sq., Cambridge, to the shootout at MIT, to vicinity of Watertown Arsenal where the guy lost the cops. It's about a 5 mi. x 1 mi. search band hugging the banks of the Charles River, heading well west of downtown, that does not cross at all into the City of Boston-proper. And they knew he hadn't moved far. What is the sense in locking down the entire metro area for such a small investigative area??? The further-flung neighborhoods in Boston-proper like Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, and West Roxbury are nearly 10 miles away from all this. Downtown and the Financial District, where most of that third-of-a-billion in lost revenue was...lost...in the lockdown is nearly 5 miles away. And I don't know what excuse there was for shutting down the entire MBTA...every commuter rail line for 50 miles out, every single bus line for 25 miles out, and all the subways when only one stop of one line even intersects the search area. And all Amtrak service east of New York. And all taxi service in the greater Boston area (...but keeping the Airport open with no cabs or transit to get in/out of).

That's an extreme overreaction. Every law enforcement official, point-blank, will say they knew exactly what area this 19-year-old shit was hiding in. And all evidence points to them knowing with full confidence all day long. So shut down Watertown and Cambridge. There was NOTHING to be gained by shutting down the whole metro area and part of the entire eastern seaboard other than a masturbatory display of "LOOK AT HOW MIGHTY OUR SHOW OF FORCE IS." Which aids and abets the terrorists by...um...disrupting our way of life? Which in the cases Doc cited they did not do...because when you disrupt the people's way of basic life functioning you are LETTING THE TERRORISTS win. This wasn't being overly careful with extra precautions. They knew where he was, and if they didn't the feds and locals were doing more harm to their credibility by lying all day about knowing where he was (...and I don't think they're lying). This was about them being 1) brown-skinned, 2) 'forner-to-a-degree, 3) Mooslims-maybe, 4) who read any old "Make Your Own IED" internet manual and keeping up the appearances of an all-out war on terror against enemy combatants. And if it was just "precautions", then why was yesterday's lockdown for that 19-year-old shit in a tight search area more punitive for the whole metro area than the aftermath of the ACTUAL FUCKING BOMBINGS on Monday. I don't recall when there was mass fear of bombs placed all over the city those first 2-1/2 days there being an inability to catch a stupid city bus from Dorchester to Quincy or businesses 10 miles away being ordered closed. The anti-terror forces ended up turning this self-fulfillingly into an act of economic terrorism. Which they wouldn't have done if this fit lone nut memes instead of loosely fitting the 'forn 'terrst memes.

Cowboy state reps in Arkansas must be "messaged" that them East Coast libruls ain't pussies on terror. This makes me very angry. The show of force vs. actual application of force was so insanely out-of-proportion to the actual criminal science of the manhunt I feel like I've been violated in an act of crass political triangulation and leverage.


I don't wish EITHER of this week's events on anyone else or their home, but you can never truly understand how much it fucks with your own head unless it happens around you. My city was violated on Monday, then violated again by your own government yesterday, and now we've being psychologically violated again by all this self-congratulatory ends-justify-means "anti-terror" rhetoric. Reading about that phenomenon for the last 12 years sitting a couple states over from NYC is one thing. Seeing it happen right in your backyard, and knowing that Boston is going to be perverted for years into more fuel for civil liberties erosion and political gamesmanship...it makes me angry and mistrustful of everyone who's not an immediate neighbor who went through the exact same freakshow this week. I want to give my neighbors a hug this morning. I want to be an extra-dickish Masshole driver to everyone on the road with out-of-state plates. Because we didn't get our lives upended to set a shining example for the rest of you lot.

[matedog]

What should they have done?

Well, ask yourself what gets done during manhunts? That crazy ex-cop last month didn't shut down cities, nor did he Beltway snipers a decade ago. There is something more than a little disconcerting that a search for one guy justified shutting down everything. Or rather, that officials and the public seemed in sync in this de facto martial law rule. Is that what ten-plus years of War on Terror rhetoric has done to the national psyche?

Edit: And no Miranda rights read to him. Well, that's one avenue for his defence lawyer to pursue right off the bat.

I don't agree with the Miranda rights waiving at all. I understand they seem to try to justify that in cases where "imminent public safety" is in jeopardy, or something along those lines, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

This situation differed from the ex-cop and the Beltway snipers. Ex-cop was running around the sparsely populated Sierras and the Beltway snipers were not positively identified (beyond the make and model of their car). This was a situation where you had two people identified, who, following release of their names and photos, allegedly killed a law enforcement officer, performed a car jacking, and were known to have guns and explosives (from what I've read). They were also in a specific area. By not shutting down the area, it would have allowed him a greater ability to kill more innocent people or elude capture by mixing in.

Now my understanding is that the entirety of the city was shut down. That does seem a bit excessive. They had an area delineated (Watertown, wherever the hell that is) and the shutdown should have been restricted to that area.

[Wolter]

What should they have done?

Well, ask yourself what gets done during manhunts? That crazy ex-cop last month didn't shut down cities, nor did he Beltway snipers a decade ago. There is something more than a little disconcerting that a search for one guy justified shutting down everything. Or rather, that officials and the public seemed in sync in this de facto martial law rule. Is that what ten-plus years of War on Terror rhetoric has done to the national psyche?

Edit: And no Miranda rights read to him. Well, that's one avenue for his defence lawyer to pursue right off the bat.

They knew exactly what path the brothers took from their home in Inman Sq., Cambridge, to the shootout at MIT, to vicinity of Watertown Arsenal where the guy lost the cops. It's about a 5 mi. x 1 mi. search band hugging the banks of the Charles River, heading well west of downtown, that does not cross at all into the City of Boston-proper. And they knew he hadn't moved far. What is the sense in locking down the entire metro area for such a small investigative area??? The further-flung neighborhoods in Boston-proper like Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, and West Roxbury are nearly 10 miles away from all this. Downtown and the Financial District, where most of that third-of-a-billion in lost revenue was...lost...in the lockdown is nearly 5 miles away. And I don't know what excuse there was for shutting down the entire MBTA...every commuter rail line for 50 miles out, every single bus line for 25 miles out, and all the subways when only one stop of one line even intersects the search area. And all Amtrak service east of New York. And all taxi service in the greater Boston area (...but keeping the Airport open with no cabs or transit to get in/out of).

That's an extreme overreaction. Every law enforcement official, point-blank, will say they knew exactly what area this 19-year-old shit was hiding in. And all evidence points to them knowing with full confidence all day long. So shut down Watertown and Cambridge. There was NOTHING to be gained by shutting down the whole metro area and part of the entire eastern seaboard other than a masturbatory display of "LOOK AT HOW MIGHTY OUR SHOW OF FORCE IS." Which aids and abets the terrorists by...um...disrupting our way of life? Which in the cases Doc cited they did not do...because when you disrupt the people's way of basic life functioning you are LETTING THE TERRORISTS win. This wasn't being overly careful with extra precautions. They knew where he was, and if they didn't the feds and locals were doing more harm to their credibility by lying all day about knowing where he was (...and I don't think they're lying). This was about them being 1) brown-skinned, 2) 'forner-to-a-degree, 3) Mooslims-maybe, 4) who read any old "Make Your Own IED" internet manual and keeping up the appearances of an all-out war on terror against enemy combatants. And if it was just "precautions", then why was yesterday's lockdown for that 19-year-old shit in a tight search area more punitive for the whole metro area than the aftermath of the ACTUAL FUCKING BOMBINGS on Monday. I don't recall when there was mass fear of bombs placed all over the city those first 2-1/2 days there being an inability to catch a stupid city bus from Dorchester to Quincy or businesses 10 miles away being ordered closed. The anti-terror forces ended up turning this self-fulfillingly into an act of economic terrorism. Which they wouldn't have done if this fit lone nut memes instead of loosely fitting the 'forn 'terrst memes.

Cowboy state reps in Arkansas must be "messaged" that them East Coast libruls ain't pussies on terror. This makes me very angry. The show of force vs. actual application of force was so insanely out-of-proportion to the actual criminal science of the manhunt I feel like I've been violated in an act of crass political triangulation and leverage.


I don't wish EITHER of this week's events on anyone else or their home, but you can never truly understand how much it fucks with your own head unless it happens around you. My city was violated on Monday, then violated again by your own government yesterday, and now we've being psychologically violated again by all this self-congratulatory ends-justify-means "anti-terror" rhetoric. Reading about that phenomenon for the last 12 years sitting a couple states over from NYC is one thing. Seeing it happen right in your backyard, and knowing that Boston is going to be perverted for years into more fuel for civil liberties erosion and political gamesmanship...it makes me angry and mistrustful of everyone who's not an immediate neighbor who went through the exact same freakshow this week. I want to give my neighbors a hug this morning. I want to be an extra-dickish Masshole driver to everyone on the road with out-of-state plates. Because we didn't get our lives upended to set a shining example for the rest of you lot.

*slow clap leading to thunderous applause*

[Dr. Medulla]

*slow clap leading to thunderous applause*

There's something really fun watching Ratty vent his spleen like that. Otherwise, I have nothing to add. A fine rant, sir.

[Rat Patrol]

Now my understanding is that the entirety of the city was shut down. That does seem a bit excessive. They had an area delineated (Watertown, wherever the hell that is) and the shutdown should have been restricted to that area.

Here's a map of yesterday's events: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/04/19/41 ... erway.html.

The dark red area is Watertown. As you can see it was really only the eastern half of it--the Watertown Sq./Arsenal neighborhood--that was impacted. The place immediately to the right of Watertown is Cambridge. The sequence of events Thurs. night went from Inman Sq. up by the border with Somerville and cut across the whole of the MIT campus, which hugs the river. Places Harvard-north into North Cambridge were never impacted (and why Somerville got spared the lockdown I do not understand at all). That whole area stretching south to almost I-95 and east encircling the whole harbor is Boston-proper. So is that neighborhood (Allston-Brighton) just across the river connected to the rest of the city by that thin strip of land (the strip more-or-less being the BU campus). The bombings were in Copley Sq. just south of the river (Google placemarks it on this map). See any pushpins denoting events anywhere near the vicinity of Boston-proper? Neither do I. All of that area in orange is what got locked down...including the wholly unrelated towns of Brookline, Belmont, Newton, and Waltham.


Even on 9/11 they only shut the boro of Manhattan in NYC...the other 4 were open for business. This was a cosmic overreaction for cynical "tough-on-terror" appearances.

[Bankrobber]

I'm actually with Hoy on this one. Over-reaction? maybe. Police-state crack-down? No. It was over-blown, yes, but this doesn't smack to me of Gestapo or KGB. I have devoted my adult years to this study, and it is not that. I don't live there and didn't experience it first hand, so you can completely invalidate my opinion. However, the media was not shut-down, the public wasn't threatened with being gunned down, so I don't think it was a police-state-action. It was an over-reaction, yes, however these guys were throwing bombs from a car. Also, they were from the damn Caucacus region, they were white as far as I'm concerned and it's good to see the government massive apparatus turned against quasi-Europeans for change. I'm fine with ruining a day of capitalism for catching a couple of monsters. If it was a police-state they would've gunned them both down and then made up whatever they please. I dunno I guess, I'm emotional about this. Yesterday was a somber day here in Oklahoma, as it is every year, and by night we got to see a form of justice done.

A caveat, as I said I wasn't there and didn't feel the crackdown. So, this is all just an opinion based on my distant thoughts of watching the news.

I am glad the news finally gave me a night of sleep. Monday I watched waiting for a break in the Boston case. Tuesday I payed Batman, all night long (i blame the shittiness of the world for need to create Batman for this :) ), Wednesday I watched late night coverage of the West, TX fertilizer explosion, and Thursday I watched the over-night Watetown action movie.

[Wolter]

While I would certainly say it's facile to say "this is a police state, like Nazi Germany!" I would also caution that Nazi/Soviet styles of coercion are not the only possible ways to lose freedom. In fact, a case could be made that shutting the press down entirely is unnecessary and clumsy, when the press is more or less your cheerleaders anyway.

[Bankrobber]

While I would certainly say it's facile to say "this is a police state, like Nazi Germany!" I would also caution that Nazi/Soviet styles of coercion are not the only possible ways to lose freedom. In fact, a case could be made that shutting the press down entirely is unnecessary and clumsy, when the press is more or less your cheerleaders anyway.

Well, as I said, yesterday is a massive day for us. Everyone here has a streak of anger.

[Dr. Medulla]

While I would certainly say it's facile to say "this is a police state, like Nazi Germany!" I would also caution that Nazi/Soviet styles of coercion are not the only possible ways to lose freedom. In fact, a case could be made that shutting the press down entirely is unnecessary and clumsy, when the press is more or less your cheerleaders anyway.

Exactly. One doesn't have to lose liberties by having them seized in a coup. It's the steady erosion that people cheer about—that people demand—that is more unnerving. Shit like the PATRIOT Act and taking off your shoes is what people get angry about, but it's the gradual, imperceptible shift in expectations of what you let the state do to "protect" you that is nasty. Even weirder is that simultaneous belief that government is incompetent in providing valuable services—health care, say—but acceptance that the military budget needs to always increasing, that cops need more weapons and powers, all that stuff that restricts your freedom and makes other countries hate you. The effect on the national identity, rather than the overt displays of power, that is far more disturbing to me because the former encourages the latter.

[Bankrobber]

You guys wouldn't last 48 hours in a Mass. statie state.

[Dr. Medulla]

You guys wouldn't last 48 hours in a Mass. statie state.

My understanding is that Ratty is one of the friendlier ones.