rms is rms.
this is not a bad thing.
Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts
21–30 of 266 posts
Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts
#22>4 people killed in a week is not a lot compared with the background level of deaths in the US. It's not as many as in the Texas explosion. Car accidents in the US kill around 100 people a day, and surely grievously injure hundreds more. ============================ Difference being of course, one was a deliberate attack on human life, and the other a very _very_ unfortunate accident. Stupid comparison to make for th…
I hate to say it, but Stallman has a good point. Plant safety cuts into profits, left to itself management will not encourage safe working practice - there must be meaningful oversight by an outside agency.
Thanks to regulatory capture oversight is weak, and this is not an accident but an intended outcome of the political system.
Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts
#23This is what Stallman wrote right after the suspect was caught. My personal response is: There will always be a situation that is worse or where more people died, but that doesn't mean this isn't a very emotional and trying time for many, where the police and people of Boston were desperate to catch a person throwing explosives and shooting magazines of bullets in their city. Telling people to stay home for a few hou…
> but that doesn't mean this isn't a very emotional and trying time for many,
I think you're right, it is a very emotional time for many. I think he's trying to put that in a more rational perspective so that we, collectively, don't forget about the big picture.
Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts
#24And how do you suppose this broad-brush lockdown could have been avoided? The first ideas that come to my mind involve better surveillance and other privacy intrusions.
In fact, it's pretty unavoidable and perhaps even desirable that government have access to a fine level of information which could be used for utter tyranny. So the energies spent worrying about or averting such threats had best be focused on controlling what government will actually do with the information it has.
http://www.dbms2.com/2010/04/04/privacy-liberty-continued/ on the subject is 3 years old, but I think it still holds up pretty well.
Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts
#25I didn't really hear about any responses to law enforcement entering homes. If they were sweeping the area did anyone refuse entry? Also really looking forward to the knee-jerk anti 2nd ammendment lobby using another tragedy as a prop.
Nooo, they wouldn't do that would they?
Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts
#26Stupid and tone deaf. These guys filled hospitals with people who had their limbs blown off. And they shot cops willy nilly. The fact that only a few people are dead is small comfort. These were some of the most dangerous people in the entire country, comparing their danger to the danger of industry or automobile transit is just silly. Those are very different problems with very different solutions.
Right, intention is what's important, a guy who's gun accidentally goes off and hurts a few people is not the same as a guy who's actively shooting into a crowd.
Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts
#27He seems to make the mistake of comparing damage done to response instead of potential damage done to response.
The two suspects, after settings off anti-personnel bombs in a civilian area, executed a police officer, then got into a firefight with automatic weapons, grenades, and more anti-personnel bombs.
They demonstrated the means and the lack of conscience to do a LOT of damage in an urban area. A lot more than the average day in greater Boston's automotive death toll and as such were met with a massive response to prevent that possible outcome.
Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts
#28It took hundreds of police and probably millions of dollars to catch a teenager who didn't even bother to leave the area or go into hiding - and even TWEETED after the event. If we were attacked by real, organized terrorists, we are screwed. I really do not get all the celebration and back-patting, it's disturbing. Oh and while this huge distraction was going on - no background checks for guns, the most basic bill fa…
They were actually about to abort the "bruteforce" operation before they got a call that someone had found the suspect in their boat, outside the perimeter. I really hope they evalute the operation properly. A good outcome doesn't necessarily validate the process.
I thought it was really odd that they told people they could go about their business after completing the Watertown search without finding him. It seemed to me at that point the probability of us being injured had just gone up. However, lifting the stay-indoors request turned out to be crucial, because a man spotted the blood on the boat only after going outside for the first time all day.
On the other hand, if they had simply expanded the search area block by block without lifting the stay-indoors request, then they probably would have found him quickly with less risk to Watertown residents. In any case, I agree that it's important for the governments involved to evaluate what could have been done better.
Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts
#29As unfeeling as his statement might sound, he's entirely correct. I told a family member today that the saddest thing about this whole Boston incident isn't the (still very sad and senseless) loss of life and limb, but that it's undoubtedly going to be used as an excuse to further degrade civil rights nationwide in the coming years, to continue to justify state-sponsored human suffering like Guantanamo, and to further enforce money-wasting, civil-rights-violating theater like the TSA... all while real threats to life like car accidents and disease get left behind.
Re: Richard Stallman response to Boston Police efforts
#30It took hundreds of police and probably millions of dollars to catch a teenager who didn't even bother to leave the area or go into hiding - and even TWEETED after the event. If we were attacked by real, organized terrorists, we are screwed. I really do not get all the celebration and back-patting, it's disturbing. Oh and while this huge distraction was going on - no background checks for guns, the most basic bill fa…
They were actually about to abort the "bruteforce" operation before they got a call that someone had found the suspect in their boat, outside the perimeter. I really hope they evalute the operation properly. A good outcome doesn't necessarily validate the process.
If they had a helicopter that could detect infrared, which indeed sufficed to find him under the boat, why wasn't that already deployed to look into shed, boats, etc. around the neighborhood? (Including outside the main perimeter.)
I doubt the reason was 4th Amendment scruples.