Drones at Home

Meanwhile.

Somehow, between the renewed search for Jimmy Hoffa and the totally unrelated but curiously considered so story of James Gandolfini's death, the FBI has let slip that it has been using drones in domestic cases.  This for me goes under the category of "things we already suspected or knew in our hearts about our government but were simply relegating to XFiles paranoia".  Ultimately, we have no right to privacy and since we have a long history of believing these kinds of weapons to be useful against people in other countries, it is going to be difficult to argue why we should not use them at home.  Mostly though, I think the FBI deserves a pat on the back for the careful timing of the release of this information, just as gangsters and the mob are at the forefront of everyone' minds, just when we are all thinking about the difficulty of infiltrating or observing these tightly knit crime societies, the FBI slips this piece of information in.  Well played FBI, well played.

Photograph Courtesy of:

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/future-war-drones-that-talk-to-each-other-and-coordinate-an-attack/2011/09/19/gIQA4xqogK_graphic.html

With the Fishes

Sleeper.

Yesterday, demonstrating an astoninishing lack of ability to prioritize with regards to public safety or funds, the FBI spent an entire day searching an abandoned field outside Detroit for the body of Jimmy Hoffa.  Oddly, they found nothing.  Meanwhile, the FBI's own "Crime Clock" provided us with this information:

A violent crime occurs in the United States every 25.3 seconds

There is a murder every 35.6 seconds

A forcible rape occurs every 6.2 seconds

A robbery occurs every 1.4 seconds

But the Jimmy Hoffa thing, it's really pressing, you know?

Resources/Photograph:

FBI Crime Clock

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/crime-clock

Image

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/17/investigators-dig-up-michigan-field-in-search-for-jimmy-hoffa-remains/

Hide and Seek

Terrorized.

I keep listening to the talking heads and heads of state and people interviewed on the street declare that we are victorious in Boston because we did not and will not allow ourselves to be terrorized.  But did we not just let the search for a single person put the entire city of Boston under house arrest?  Did we not suspend all business, education, and cultural events because of that man?  Did we not increase the range and enormity of the impacts of his actions by doing this?  And what does this say about the future of our civil liberties?  Is fear a justifiable cause for the erosion of our rights?  Maybe we all need to step back and think about what terror really means and what kind of power we want to give to its perpetrators.

Merriam Webster defines terrorism in this way: "The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims."

To read the FBI's much longer and more detailed definition:

http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005

Photograph Courtesy of:

http://nsanchez8691.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/the-definition-of-terrorism/