Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Like most of us I have been watching the developments in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon tragedy throughout the week. Because I’m retired I probably logged more hours of viewing it on TV than most people who are younger. The initial bombings on Monday and their aftermath made me terribly sad at the loss of innocent lives and the maiming of so many, which will have future pain and consequences for the entire lives of the victims. As a father and grandfather how could I not feel painful tears for the death of an 8 year old and the lifelong pain of his parents? Yet beyond that sadness, I also felt a sense of anxiety in my chest as I listened to the hour upon hour of cable news coverage and the analysis of “terrorism experts” aligned with prognosticators telling us what it all means.
My anxiety did not stem from fear of terrorism, because that fear is irrational. This is so not because terrorism is a chimera, but because this type of terrorism is an all too real fact of the lives of humanity and indeed while we in America have suffered it, so has the rest of the world to an even greater degree. Great Britain, Spain, Iraq, Israel, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia etc. and so on and so forth. Life itself is always uncertain and unseen death lurks as a constant possibility for even the most protected of us. This has always been the human condition and the truth is that as the eons of human history have passed we are far safer now than our ancestors ever were. Yet it is also a human necessity to maintain the illusion of our own safety and indeed immortality. When horrors like the Boston Marathon bombings occur it tends to shake up our human illusions and engender fear. In the aftermath of these horrors though come the “explainers” whose attempts to soothe us only increase the fears. Following the “explainers” come those who would exploit the aroused fears for their personal gain or predilection. This happened in America from 9/11 and in its wake the false meme “This Changes Everything” was transformed into a reality of war, torture and the shredding of our Constitution. My anxiety was raised because as I watch this all unfold on TV I became fearful of how this new attention arousing horror would be used by those intent upon transforming this country into a Police State under the guise of saving it from terror.
Last night I watched the TV coverage from 5:00 pm until Midnight. In the aftermath of the successful capture of the second suspect and with the bows taken by the innumerable Law Enforcement Officers (LEO’s), my anxiety reached a point of fruition where I saw that this whole incident does not bode well for us all and for our freedoms. The climax of that during the self-congratulatory press conference was the introduction of the vile U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, who will be handling this prosecution. For those where the name Carmen Ortiz doesn’t ring a bell please follow these links to recent blogs by Jonathan Turley and me: http://jonathanturley.org/2013/01/30/the-obama-administrations-inspector-javert-federal-court-rejects-forfeiture-effort-by-the-office-of-carmen-ortiz-in-stinging-rebuke/ and: http://jonathanturley.org/2013/01/26/carmen-ortiz-prosecution-for-political-ego/ and this: http://jonathanturley.org/2013/01/18/the-obama-administrations-inspector-javert-speaks-ortiz-issues-statement-in-swartz-case/
Ms. Ortiz responded to a question by confirming the “Public Safety Exception” would be invoked in this case, which would delay informing the suspect of his Miranda rights and keep him from seeing an attorney. The use of this Court approved “exception” basically takes away the Constitutional Rights of defendants presumed to be terrorists and yes this is something that we as ordinary citizens should worry about as explained here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/04/dzhokhar_tsarnaev_and_miranda_rights_the_public_safety_exception_and_terrorism.html
There had been speculation throughout the day that this “Exception” would be invoked, indeed the “estimable” Senator Lindsay Graham has called on the President to invoke this “exception” and now after the successful capture we get confirmation that the Administration would do just that and this information is relayed by a U.S. Attorney who has exhibited the tendency to use the power of the office to harass at least one person into suicide.
There was more though about the whole way this case played out that disturbed me further and it is something that I have written about recently: http://jonathanturley.org/2013/03/09/swat-is-america-coming-under-martial-law/
After the death of the older brother in the shootout in the middle of night and the escape of the younger brother initiating the massed manhunt, the entire City of Boston was in effect shut down. Maybe I’m too blasé in attitude but this seemed to be an extraordinary measure. Even in the direct aftermath of 9/11 only Lower Manhattan below 42nd Street was shut down and that was due to the chaos and disruption in the aftermath of the collapse of the World Trade Center disrupting the subways and other New York City services. In this case the citizens of an entire large City were ordered to remain indoors indefinitely. Now I can understand this precaution taken in the Watertown area alone, but all of Boston seems excessive. It essentially held an entire City hostage to the whims of one admittedly dangerous 19 year old, where all the evidence would lead one to presume was on foot, since LEO’s quickly discovered the abandoned, hijacked Mercedes he drove through a police barricade to escape. I found this troubling.
It was ironic in the end, that the suspect was eventually located as a direct result of the “shutdown” being lifted, by a man who came out of his house, noticed blood on the tarp of his boat and peeked in to see the suspect covered in blood. Also troubling to me was that once the suspect had been located it seemed like every sort of LEO from the area drove down congesting the streets with an abundance of vehicles, armored cars, ambulances and trucks of various kinds. Actually an hour into the siege I saw three Federal Government, Black SUV’s pull up into the crowd of vehicles and LEO’s and these were presumably the FBI arriving on the scene. Actually, the Agencies represented there were beyond count. There were at least the Watertown PD, the Boston PD, the FBI, and the DEA (why?), the ATF, the Massachusetts State Troopers, the National Guard (why?) and who knows who else. The show of force to capture one cornered and bloody young man was extraordinary and I think far out of proportion to the mission at hand. Indeed it seemed that many officers came down to feel like they had gotten into the action, rather than out of need. That this terrorist was captured alive is indeed salutary, but the show of force seemed out of place and will no doubt serve as a model for future situations. This indeed seemed to be the “Martial Law” that I discussed in my blog linked above.
Please understand I’m not implying that the capture of the suspect and the solving of this act of terror, at least of the immediate perpetrators wasn’t a good bit of work by law enforcement, because it was. Yet if you think about it, as with most stupidly committed crimes a good deal of the work done was not trailblazing a new path, but actually using long established law enforcement methods updated by our digital age. The cameras that captured the original pictures belonged to Lord and Taylor, not the City of Boston. The video of the two men that was played over and over was a direct analogy to something that we’ve used in this country for hundreds of years, the wanted poster. While it might come out that the video of the perpetrators initiated leads as to the men’s identities from friends and acquaintances, it was the killing of the MIT policeman that focused the attention of the area where the bombers were confronted. Finally, even though a supposed perimeter had been established that cornered the younger brother, he was as admitted by the police holed up in a boat one block outside that perimeter and only discovered by a private citizen. This was good police work, but not astounding police work and yet the hagiography has already begun about this case and precedent will be established based upon it. I am glad for the capture, interested in discovering the reasons for this terrible act, but depressed that it may represent a further step towards a police state in America, under possibly martial law. What do you think?
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/03/09/swat-is-america-coming-under-martial-law/
I am deeply concerned. I do believe it was “way more”, than was necessary. Certainly, the thought that the case “may have” been solved brings relief for the residents of Boston. As far as I know, this country is still “innocent; until proven guilty” but our media-driven, internet-connected age does not honor that code – remember Richard Jewell ? – who’s heroism led him to become the prime suspect, in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, until they caught Eric Rudolph, a Christian extremist protesting abortion, by maiming innocent people attending a public event. I am deeply saddened that such things happen; but I worry as much, about the erosion of my freedom to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.
Dredd, Let’s just discuss how the people who were most affected reacted to the lockdown and search. I’m very serious, have you seen anyone in Boston complaining. I’m sure there are some. I’ve looked on websites most likely to write about them but haven’t found any to date.Can we agree people most hurt see this differently than us sitting in our living room[mother’s basement was a bit over the line..I admit].
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-04-20/two-kinds-terrorists
Dredd: Sympathies are not in question here, nor empathy. The political and juristic ramifications on victims here include the rest of us until we determine that the ripples of reactionary fervor do not facilitate an instrumental opportunity for a blind trust of power elements that legitimize and justify military society in America. The questions being raised by this article are necessary “due diligence” in protecting every American and the future of American constitutional democracy. We are not just “stakeholders” in this effort…, as citizens we are actually “shareholders” in this political-military restraint.
Having made this point, there are certain discussions on the complimentary articles (by happenstance an excellent series of 3) that you might study.
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/04/19/pavlovian-politics-leaders-line-up-to-call-for-increased-surveillance-in-aftermath-of-boston-bombing/ has other links (I am limited here to 2 links to entry on the stream).
In the questioning of opportunistic leaders raised by the surveillance article, Anon…has contributed an important and intelligent article concerning an issue for all of us termed “Presentment” in the legal arena>
…here is the link: http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/04/20/dzhokhar-tsaraev-the-big-issue-is-not-miranda-its-presentment/#comment-541460 (titled); Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: The Big Issue Is Not Miranda, It’s Presentment
Posted on April 20, 2013 by emptywheel
The author makes a critical assessment that has profound impact on the consequences of this tragedy we are enduring:
“Now, thus far, I’m actually not that worked up about Miranda rights (though I may get there soon). As Orin Kerr explains, the public safety exception is a legally recognized law, and Miranda itself only limits what can be admitted as testimony against Dzhokhar in his trial (I’m betting he’ll plead guilty in any case). The government appears to have so much evidence against him in any case, any confession he makes will likely not be necessary to convict him.
“Mind you, as Charlie Savage reported two years ago, the government has been institutionalizing longer delays before they give Miranda warnings, most notably with people they (or foreign proxies) interrogate overseas first, followed by a clean team Mirandized interrogation. And as the reference to “gain[ing] critical intelligence” above suggests, the Obama Administration is stretching the intent of pre-Miranda interrogations to include more substantive interrogation (update: Emily Bazelon also made this point).”
Now in regard to this article. and not only Marshall law or rule being rehearsed under the guise of a law enforcement manhunt, but the ongoing insidious “militarization” of our society. Many of the suspicious legislations that deregulated the markets have their counterpart in neutralizing the constitutional rights of Americans (in situ). The profile here is to test ground overseas on foreign soils unprotected by our written constitutional constraints and then (rationalize) provide “justifications” to “legitimate” these exceptions under crisis driven reactionary fervor. It is an insidious process, but one that perhaps “Suharto” inspires rather than our own Kennedy “sunrise” of past enlightenment days (…sorry if that is a bit obscure…others will understand…). The points are enhanced by the fact that one entire “generation” of Americans have now served in the military and perhaps have been exposed to the deployed atrocities overseas, and are more acclimatized to such rationalizations that “ration” rights proportionately. So perhaps your personal concerns might be more perplexing then the physical assault on one of our beloved cities and the people directly exposed. But what you must fathom is the implications that have damaged us all and our children and our Nation if the end result of our “understandings” result in tyranny over justice and the end of American inspiration to the end of the world. Are we regressing to the Iron rule of Oligarchy and militaristic regimentation as in history, or do we stand and transcend these transgressions from all quarters of power abuse as our heritage demands?
I truly sympathize with your feelings, but believe me…feelings are easy to manipulate in the heat of arguments and discernment.
nick spinelli 1, April 20, 2013 at 7:55 pm
OS, Thank you for your wisdom and sanity. I don’t believe anyone pontificating here is from Boston. I’m from those parts, got 2 siblings who live in the area. They are not pushovers and just as tough as NYer’s but not as assh@leish. They don’t only agree w/ the search, they are expressing gratitude. It’s easy to be tough from your mother’s basement!
Oky1 1, April 21, 2013 at 1:08 am
Remember the movie …
=======================================================
Oky1, that is some very good pontificating. Bravo.
Nick, not so good pontificating.
Remember the movie “The Departed” & Jack Nicholson?
It looks/feels like The Clintons/Bushs/Obama/Bloomberg mafia types have decided to make a part 2 version.
I hope everyone smart was out with the flu, posted everything relevant to something like youtube or at the very least have their life insurance policy paid up.
You & I both know it always happens the same way after one of these Gladio type events. The aholes don’t care whether you know anything or not, they bury everyone that might.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ny-times-fbi-staged-terror-attacks.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/glenn-beck-says-obama-is-covering-up-truth-of-boston-bombing.html
Th police nanny state reminded me of something I’ve read about Hiters’ SS doing during WWII…. Scary as we repeat these on USSoil…. But fear works wonders…..
Mike,
Here’s a link to Charlie Pierce’s post at Esquire’s Politicis Blog. Like me, Pierce is a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Guns Along The River: A Late Night In Watertown
By Charles P. Pierce
4/20/13
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/night-in-watertown-cemetery-042013
Excerpt:
WATERTOWN, Ma. — The last of a long day’s true absurdities came a little before nine on Friday night. Police cars of every description and size were piling back down Mt. Auburn Street and up towards the Massachusetts Turnpike, whence many of them would depart for dozens of other towns in and around the state. In the distance behind them, cheering arose, and there was a great honking of horns, and as I crossed the bridge over the Charles, a man walked up to me, pinwheels for eyes, and said, “Hey, man. Got any weed?
I stopped and began to laugh. “Are you kidding me?” I asked him. “There are approximately 300,000 cops within four blocks of us right now and you’re trying to score?” I laughed again, and he looked sad, and wandered off through Watertown Square in the general direction of the rising applause.
It was a day that began with a guy coming home from work and wandering into a firefight. It was a day that ended with another guy coming home from a day beside the ocean and wandering into another one. It was a day on unearthly quiet along the wooded paths along the river. It was a day of rumors and doubt, and heavy weaponry around the Target and the Best Buy. It was a day of sheltering in place. It was a day in which the essential geography of my life — “Hey, there’s the place where I blog every day!” — turned into a place of dark corners and of rustling in the underbrush. And it ended with cheers rising from an old cemetery where buried are some of the casualties from Bunker Hill.
It was a day in which the governor and law enforcement officials called a very solemn press conference to announce that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, having bafflingly escaped both a high-speed pursuit and a legitimate running gun battle the night before, might very well be in the wind, but that they were lifting the shelter-in-place order and allowing the citizens of Watertown, and Newton, and the adjoining communities to leave their homes again. And then, not 20 minutes later, police cruisers on both sides of the river were executing cop-movie U-turns, and a police helicopter was stationed above a stretch of Mt. Auburn Street, and there were gunshots again, and people soon were gathering in an old cemetery in the dark and the day itself already was filled with ghosts.
Donohue’s is an Irish pub on Bigelow Street just up behind the Watertown Mall. (I once played pub trivia there when it was under different management and had a different name, which I can’t remember right now.) Late as Thursday night became Friday morning, John Donohue was closing up, and he was watching the television set with increasing alarm. Somebody had shot an MIT police officer to death. Somebody had knocked over a convenience store. After what had happened at the Boston Marathon on Monday, Donohue wondered what the hell was going on around him these days. He decided to go home early. He got in his car and drove up toward Mt. Auburn Street. He turned right. He found himself in the middle of war zone. The Tsarnaev brothers had come home.
“It was a crazy, surreal scene,” Donohue said. “I turned the car and I ended up in the middle of this melee. There were shots flying everywhere and I heard two very loud explosions, and then a third one.” Donohue tried to go back to his restaurant, but a State Police officer stopped him. “Get the fuck out of here,’ the officer explained, “Right fucking now.”
Elaine,
The Pierce article you posted here and the one you posted on Gene’s are excellent, he is a wonderful writer and gives real insight into whst happened.
OS, Thank you for your wisdom and sanity. I don’t believe anyone pontificating here is from Boston. I’m from those parts, got 2 siblings who live in the area. They are not pushovers and just as tough as NYer’s but not as assh@leish. They don’t only agree w/ the search, they are expressing gratitude. It’s easy to be tough from your mother’s basement!
all that swat assault training and no one said or did anything when two people walked up, set down large packages, and walked away.
there is more to anti-terrorist training than teaching how to shoot one in the face.
Regarding the search. I know all the lawyers here know this, but this may help explain to others what was happening, with the drama removed.
The section of the law which provides a loophole in the Fourth Amendment is called “exigent circumstances.” Case law and a couple of excerpts here.
People v. Ramey, 545 P.2d 1333,1341 (Cal. 1976)
United States v. McConney, 728 F. 2d 1195, 1199
In the manhunt case, it is standard practice to establish as tight a perimeter as possible, and to conduct house to house searches under what is called a “Ramey Warrant.” I have participated in the same kind of searches when we were looking for lost kids on a mountain. That particular mountain has a 150 square mile footprint, and a few dozen houses, mostly vacation homes, on that side of the mountain. One kid was autistic. It had been a warm day so he was wearing only shorts and a t-shirt when he vanished. It was March in the mountains, where temps drop to well below freezing at night; not to mention a ten year old kid is not at the top of the food chain up here. We searched houses, storage sheds, barns, and anyplace else a scared kid might hide or even be captured by a two-legged predator. The search team did not worry about any legal fallout–take care of that later. We found him alive about 10:00 the next morning. He was hiding under a pile of brush in a ravine at the 5,500 foot level. Cold to the point of hypothermia, and hungry, but OK. It was a good day.
My concern is not about the way the search was conducted. It appears a good protocol was used, and it got the desired results. However, I have concern about the the fallout from this in days and weeks to come. We are back to “shock doctrine” tactics from lawmakers and the judiciary.
and the DEA (why?)
=================================================
never know when there may be evidence that needs to be disposed of
Alex Jones is a modern day Astrologer. He is smart enough to map the movement of the stars. Clever enough to create mildly plausible reasons for their movements. And he has an audience eager to believe snake oil logic.
Astrology (Astronomy) based on science, originally concerned the movement and predictions of the stars.
Sadly it morphed into explaining the ills, good fortune, triumphs and tragedy of Kings and common folk.
Having faith in Alex Jones “predictions and explanations” is believing logic pattern A then ignoring all the other logic patterns (b,c,d,etc) till one jumps on conclusion Z. Alex makes sense if you ignore and willfully discredit an alphabet of reasons logic & truths, that counter and prove wrong this modern day Astrologer.
Faith in religion, astrology, spaghetti monsters and stars, to divine reasons for events tragic or triumphant, has been a cohesive and uniting force common among all of emerging human civilization. Faith in the divine has helped humans step up from the mud of animal instinct and emotion.
Humans have (in increasingly more experience) risen above survival of the fittest. We care for the elderly, instead of leaving them in the bushes when they can’t keep with the herd. The sick and injured can now be nurtured back to health. We have the ability to educate others and raise their understandings and awareness of life and its’ fulfillment.
Our current evolutionary stage is democratic government. Organized for the benefit of the greater and common good.
Faith in government is challenging….to say the least. Our constitution quite possibly is the greatest achievement of humankind.
God did not write it, Stars did not write it, nor Zeus or Spaghetti monsters. We the people did. We the people hold the responsibility to uphold it, follow it, and balance the equality for all proclaimed in it.
We are the government :
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
We have a revolution every two and four years in this country at the voting booth. Sadly the revolutionaries of today demand artificially flavored meme water, juvenile ego massages, and mashed potato mind numbing flash bang idiot box entertainment.
….. The fault my fellow Americans is ours. This government is ours. The responsibility is ours. We get what we deserve.
“Our constitution quite possibly is the greatest achievement of humankind.”
It goes without saying that we have a written constitution against the odds, and perhaps because in due part to the Atlantic Ocean between Old Europe and the New World. Written constitutions just don’t come easy in history, and we need to preserve it against the very same tendencies that kept it from history in the first place: Absolute power and domination over others for private gain through tyranny and total coercive constraints. .
Don’t blame the public when it is a consortium of private people; but point your finger at these very precise people that have taken on the mantle of supremacy as freedom and liberty as the right to dominate and are dismantling history with our constitution. Faith in government is a path dependent fallacy. Trust is one that can be tested; blind faith is for true believers …the target population for deceivers. And Deception is the name of the zero sum game these days.
As Otteray Scribe so wisely pointed out;
“We are back to “shock doctrine” tactics from lawmakers and the judiciary.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/19/1203241/-The-wonder-of-libertarian-zoning-laws-West-Texas-edition We often stopped in West Texas on the way to Austin. it is a little town whose residents are primarily of Czech descent but now includes some hispanics., They have Czech bakeries and restaurants which are kind of unique in Texas. We were struck by the poverty of the town with the big fertilizer plant. Little did we know that the owners of the plant were not in compliance with the laws and zoning did not exist. But then again, it is Texas, and the governor that wants to eliminate the EPA and secede is now begging for federal aid.
“I’m not only sick, but angry at the media and government continually milking this for personal gain.”
Bob,
Thank you for a cogent rant that puts this all in perspective, especially your mention of the disaster in West Texas. You summed up my feelings about the media in this instance better than I did in the blog and I appreciate it.
Another trenchant commentary on the subject from the inimitable investigative reporter Russ Baker.
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/04/19/the-marathon-bombing-what-the-media-didnt-warn-you-about/
Well, rick — did the articles help you to realize that what happened in Boston was an inside job, but you just can’t bring yourself to acknowledge it, or is it more likely the case that new evidence is not going to change your already made-up mind?
It stuns me that the writer expresses this young man as guilty. The FBi had their sites set on these brothers 3 years ago, because they can.. The FBI can’t go on without creating bad guys for public consumption even it means they have to set them up. They have a lot of history in this stuff. Where’s the evidence? The govt doesn’t have enough power that they refuse the suspect his Miranda rights? Did we have near enough legions of various policing/military agents swarming around at the end in their lurid lust to be part of the alarming display of street terror known as our “police?” How can this person possibly get a fair trail? When will we begin to have real journalism that really reports what is going on here. Will anyone ever ask about actual evidence? This habitual rush to judgment in the media is MORE SCARY than the firepower onslaught with which the public was titillated.
Well bill mcwilliams, w/ some trepidations I clicked onto your links and read. It was edifying in helping me understand your views.
“The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots—or leading them?”—Trevor Aaronson
He’s got that right.
http://www.motherjones.com/authors/trevor-aaronson
“…a massive network of spies” radicalizing too many.
(Aaronson’s book: The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism
“A groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism exposes how the FBI has, under the guise of engaging in counterterrorism since 9/11, built a network of more than 15,000 informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim communities to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots so that the Bureau can then claim it is winning the war on terror.
An outgrowth of Trevor Aaronson’s work as an investigative reporting fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, which culminated in an award-winning cover story in Mother Jones magazine, The Terror Factory reveals shocking information about the criminals, con men, and liars the FBI uses as paid informants–including the story of an accused murderer who has become one of the Bureau’s most prolific terrorism snitches–as well as documenting the extreme methods the FBI uses to ensnare Muslims in terrorist plots, which are in reality conceived and financed by the FBI.
The book also offers unprecedented detail into how the FBI has transformed from a reactive law enforcement agency to a proactive counterterrorism organization that traps hapless individuals in manufactured terrorist plots in order to justify the $3 billion it spends every year fighting terrorism.” -Amazon.com description)
And that “network of informants”? 15,000?
Nope. It’s a much bigger number. Much bigger.