Boston Marathon bombing

[luke829]

Obviously our intel. missed this "chatter". Will be interesting to see where fingers start being pointed as to the perpetrator.

[glunn]

Hopefully the fingers won't point until there is some solid evidence. And whoever did this deserves the strongest possible punishment.

[Mike Sixel]

Right, let's hope no one starts pointing fingers at groups of people, even if one of their members was involved. Not all "put your group name here" are bad just because one or two are.....

[DaveW]

Obviously our intel. missed this "chatter".

 

Are you serious?

[gunnarthor]

I wonder how many people are bothered by martial law being placed on Boston for a stupid 19 year old kid.

[drjim]

I wonder how many people are bothered by martial law being placed on Boston for a stupid 19 year old kid.

 

I'm a little unsettled with much of what has happened in response. I think this is new media at it's worst.

[DaveW]

:s-bluecap:USA USA USA USA good ending, but methinks Boston PD is going to look pretty terrible in the coming days.

[Badsmerf]

Obviously our intel. missed this "chatter". Will be interesting to see where fingers start being pointed as to the perpetrator.

I thought I heard they had interviewed at least one of these guys in the past and found nothing. Our intel isn't going to be able to prevent anything bad from happening.

 

Personally, I doubt these two were completely acting alone and I hope this kid talks and we can bring accountability to those that aided them. I wish water boarding was still legal for interrogating terrorists...

[gunnarthor]

I wish water boarding was still legal for interrogating terrorists...

 

So brave of you to give up the rights of others like that.

[PseudoSABR]

I wish water boarding was still legal for interrogating terrorists...

Hasn't it been shown that these methods don't provide good intel? He's also an American citizen.

 

So far, it looks like they were self-radicalized. The elder brother was denied citizenship within the last year which may have accelerated the radicalization. Recall that no ideological motive has been championed; they essentially did it for nothing.

[Badsmerf]

So brave of you to give up the rights of others like that.

People that commit terrorist acts that kill innocent people don't deserve the same rights. Most people have the right to live, yet in states with capital punishment that right is taken away isn't it? Unless the US government has some better type of extraction methods, the people that aided these two are going to be given an opportunity to aid others. Do you want that? Murderers and rapists generally act alone, so using water boarding as a method to extract info wouldn't do much good.

 

Pseudo. Show me a link/study that agrees with you. From what I've been exposed to, water boarding is the best way to get info. I don't care if he was an American Citizen. He is a terrorist, that killed people and injured hundreds. This isn't a case where we aren't sure if he was responsible either. I believe it is a matter of public safety. I might be wrong, but they should absolutely put their resources into finding out.

[TheLeviathan]

So brave of you to give up the rights of others like that.

 

I've never quite understood this argument. We force criminals to give up rights all the time, so a generic argument like that one just rings hollow to me. It's only value is to (falsely) claim moral superiority.

[DaveW]

This talk of water boarding is a bit ridiculous, these kids were ****ing amatuers and I think blatantly were acting alone or if they had accomplices were pretty small time as well, yes it was terrible, yes it was horrific but at the end of the day the body count was only 4, and yes there were tons of people injured but it should be noted that any suicide bomber in such an instant would have killed and injured the total amount ten fold.

 

Some little punk 18 year old killed only a few months ago walked into a school and killed 20+ CHILDREN, yet no laws, policies will change.

 

A couple of nut jobs who are/were close to Americans set off a couple bombs and go on the LAM and suddenly we want to change the constitution and start torturing folks due to fear and fear alone.

 

The acts were obviously reprehensible, but the last thing we need to do is "change" a bunch of **** on a whim as a country like taking away basic rights of CITIZENS.

[PseudoSABR]

People that commit terrorist acts that kill innocent people don't deserve the same rights. Most people have the right to live, yet in states with capital punishment that right is taken away isn't it? Unless the US government has some better type of extraction methods, the people that aided these two are going to be given an opportunity to aid others. Do you want that? Murderers and rapists generally act alone, so using water boarding as a method to extract info wouldn't do much good.

.

You can't strip his rights away without habeas corpus. Rights are rights. I find it surprising that you don't agree with innocence until proven guilty.

[PseudoSABR]

I've never quite understood this argument. We force criminals to give up rights all the time, so a generic argument like that one just rings hollow to me. It's only value is to (falsely) claim moral superiority.

Criminals have been proven to be criminals in a court of law. What Smerf is championing is doing away with habeas corpus, much less our human decency.

[PseudoSABR]

Pseudo. Show me a link/study that agrees with you. From what I've been exposed to, water boarding is the best way to get info. I don't care if he was an American Citizen. He is a terrorist, that killed people and injured hundreds. This isn't a case where we aren't sure if he was responsible either. I believe it is a matter of public safety. I might be wrong, but they should absolutely put their resources into finding out.

Reuter's story on study by US Senate - found little of use came from torture

Behind the Mortal Bone - an academic law study, that concludes "any marginal benefit the practice offers is low because traditional techniques of interrogation may be as good, and possibly even better at producing valuable intelligence."

Science Daily - Reviews a study by John W. Schiemann, where he concludes "The use of torture makes it possible to extract both real and false confessions and no ability by the state to distinguish the two"

There's really quite a bit out there about it. Mostly that while torture is effective in extracting information, it isn't any more effective (and perhaps lesser effective) than regular interrogation techniques.

[Badsmerf]

You can't strip his rights away without habeas corpus. Rights are rights. I find it surprising that you don't agree with innocence until proven guilty.

I'm absolutely not advocating it before he is found guilty in a civilian court of law. I know it doesn't work this way, but I believe he should have a civilian trial, and if found guilty should be allowed to be tried for terrorism in a non-civilian trail. Once found guilty there, I think water boarding (I don't consider it torture) should be allowed as a means of extraction. I'm not saying just torture him for the fun of it, just that I believe he might have information that can lead to finding others responsible.

[TheLeviathan]

Criminals have been proven to be criminals in a court of law. What Smerf is championing is doing away with habeas corpus, much less our human decency.

 

I think that's a bit of an assumption. Given that we know next to nothing about what law enforcement knows about these two we are only talking hypotheticals.

 

Quite frankly I don't feel as though we need to wait for a trial to start extracting information. At the end of the day if we know they did it and if we believe there is time sensitivity - I'm ok with interrogation including torture if necessary. But only under those conditions. (Known guilt and potential to know time sensitive information that could save lives). I think too often the parameters are stretched too wide but I have never understood the "protect the murders rights!" arguments unless you also feel imprisonment is wrong.

[PseudoSABR]

(Known guilt and potential to know time sensitive information that could save lives).

As you say these are vague parameters. Known guilt? That phrase bothers me.

 

It's about human rights; just because a heinous crime has been committed doesn't mean that the suspected individual is no longer human. Either you believe in habeas corpus or you don't. Granting exceptions defeats the whole idea.

 

We care about protecting the rights of suspected murderers and suspected criminals. You're presuming guilt, and our whole system of justice is built upon the opposite assertion.

 

What's the old maxim, if you sacrifice liberty in the name of security, you are left with...

[PseudoSABR]

I'm absolutely not advocating it before he is found guilty in a civilian court of law. I know it doesn't work this way, but I believe he should have a civilian trial, and if found guilty should be allowed to be tried for terrorism in a non-civilian trail. Once found guilty there, I think water boarding (I don't consider it torture) should be allowed as a means of extraction. I'm not saying just torture him for the fun of it, just that I believe he might have information that can lead to finding others responsible.

Well this is more level-headed, I think.

 

I'd have to see tangible evidence that he might actually have information that's worth 'torturing for'--which I already think he doesn't possess. In my opinion there are few torture-worthy pieces of information. And as I've suggested, I'm not sure torture is the best path to get that information.

[TheLeviathan]

As you say these are vague parameters. Known guilt? That phrase bothers me.

 

It's about human rights; just because a heinous crime has been committed doesn't mean that the suspected individual is no longer human. Either you believe in habeas corpus or you don't. Granting exceptions defeats the whole idea.

 

We care about protecting the rights of suspected murderers and suspected criminals. You're presuming guilt, and our whole system of justice is built upon the opposite assertion.

 

What's the old maxim, if you sacrifice liberty in the name of security, you are left with...

 

in the case of terrorism or other mass murders I don't believe in waiting for a trial if there are further lives in risk. Now that presumes having significant evidence of ties to more attacks and reason to believe there is time sensitive risk. Of course this is vague, it's hard to presume the depths to which a terrorist may go but I won't preclude the use of extreme measures. The lives of innocents matter much more than someone who has already checked out of our social contract.

 

I'm not sacrificing the liberties of anyone innocent for security, I'm just not waiting for a token trial while people die if we have strong reason to believe they might. You want to run some one hour farce trial to ease your conscience - be my guest, but I don't see the point. We already grant such exceptions in war so lets get off that idea from the start.

[PseudoSABR]

I just don't think this is a case of imminent threat. Such cases may arise, but people seemed pretty quick to apply that exception to liberty here.

[TheLeviathan]

I just don't think this is a case of imminent threat. Such cases may arise, but people seemed pretty quick to apply that exception to liberty here.

 

i would agree about this one - I was speaking more generally. I think the administration was right not to treat him as an enemy combatant. Sorry if I dragged this more into general dialogue but I thought that was how we were heading.

[PseudoSABR]

i would agree about this one - I was speaking more generally. I think the administration was right not to treat him as an enemy combatant. Sorry if I dragged this more into general dialogue but I thought that was how we were heading.

No worries. While I don't necessarily believe in the effectiveness of torture, imminent threat situations our sense of decency should probably fall to the side.