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Harvey’s Casino Bomb

fbi.gov

101–110 of 134 posts

Re: Harvey’s Casino Bomb

#101
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't demolished. The structural integrity was not damaged, $18M was spent on repairs, and it reopened about 10 months later. Given the owner's attitude towards his staff, it seems likely they would all have been re-hired if they were still looking for work.

Interesting. You wouldn't expect that given these pictures[1] and phrases like "creating a five-story chasm in the casino" . [1] https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2009/august/a...

Evacuate the casino, but leave some cars in the parking lot (lol).

Re: Harvey’s Casino Bomb

#102
post #14

In the end he was caught because his van was identified and because "One of his sons had revealed to his then-girlfriend that his father had placed a bomb in Harvey's." I always wonder at how criminals that otherwise might seem movie-like masterminds are caught as a result of mundane mistakes and outright stupid moves like this. You would think if you are going to bomb a place, the first thing would be to not talk ab…

Posting this link (that somebody else posted in this thread) to an article with lot more coverage on the issue that wikipedia: https://magazine.atavist.com/a-thousand-pounds-of-dynamite/ Eventually, the sons of "Big John" caved in to the FBI in interrogation. While the tip of the former girlfriend made the whole family prime suspects in the first place, they did not have anything on them until the sons decided to tal…

What a fascinating story.

However, the two sons only decided to talk after the police made each one believe that the other was ratting him out. Classic interrogation technique that I've seen in countless procedural tv shows and movies.

Re: Harvey’s Casino Bomb

#104
post #14

In the end he was caught because his van was identified and because "One of his sons had revealed to his then-girlfriend that his father had placed a bomb in Harvey's." I always wonder at how criminals that otherwise might seem movie-like masterminds are caught as a result of mundane mistakes and outright stupid moves like this. You would think if you are going to bomb a place, the first thing would be to not talk ab…

As always, with any crime, the more people involved, the greater the possibility that human factors will sabotage the operation. The perfect crime has one perpetrator. It is also why its fascinating that people will believe in conspiracy theories that supposedly involve tens / hundreds / thousands of people. Theories that we faked the moon landing always intrigue me. Or that the earth is flat.

The moon landings were faked and the government chose the premier director of the era to do it. None other than Stanley Kubrick.

Kubrick was a perfectionist and stickler for details. His background as a photographer always showed through in the cinematography of his films. After extensive field testing, he chose to conduct the filming in the only way that he felt was able to adequately capture the unusual environment of the lunar surface using practical lighting techniques: he filmed all of the scenes of the mission and landing on-location.

Re: Harvey’s Casino Bomb

#105
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Snowden leaks were more or less an open secret. I mean, it is about spies spying. Sure, the NSA overstepped its borders, but it is not exactly the first time (remember ECHELON), and the way it did that wasn't revolutionary. They didn't have a quantum computer, nanobots or anything like that: just competent computer security specialists and too much money to spend. Not even something significant like brea…

It absolutely wasn't common knowledge before Snowden. Even the suggestion would have put you firmly in the conspiracy theorist camp to most people.

Consider that Wired reported on NSA's secret mass-wiretap of AT&T communications in 2006! This was a high-profile lawsuit (Hepting v. AT&T), which was dismissed in 2009 after new immunity legislation in 2008. That was followed by Jewel v. NSA in 2008 which seems still unresolved.

Not to mention the whistleblowing on the Trailblazer Project and New York Times reporting on the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" in 2005/2006.

Re: Harvey’s Casino Bomb

#107
post #97
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually we all knew the NSA was doing it, and what Snowden leaked was just the proof.

Who is "we all"? (ex: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27989385 )

Wired reported on the EFF suing AT&T over NSA wiretapping telecom traffic in bulk in 2006. And there were other assorted news reports on Trailblazer, the "Total Information Awareness program", etc. from that time.

So maybe not in the widespread public awareness, but if you were Googling trying to answer the question, "Is the USA gov't eavesdropping on all communication traffic?" in 2013 pre-Snowden, then the reasonable conclusion would've been, "Yes".

Re: Harvey’s Casino Bomb

#108
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, with any crime, the more people involved, the greater the possibility that human factors will sabotage the operation. The perfect crime has one perpetrator. It is also why its fascinating that people will believe in conspiracy theories that supposedly involve tens / hundreds / thousands of people. Theories that we faked the moon landing always intrigue me. Or that the earth is flat.

I see your point! I totally do. I also used to hold this belief. But then the Snowden revelations came out and it was revealed that probably 10,000 people in government were aware of a system that was sucking up all of our data for warrantless search and they had successfully kept the secret for something like 10 years (or more?). For sure it's true that a secret can be kept by three people if two of them are dead. B…

An obvious counterpoint is that the conspiracy was exposed, by Snowden.

I think the lesson here is that a "conspiracy" can exist as long as all of its participants believe they are morally in the right. The people involved in the NSA dragnet believed in the cause; when a non-believer (Snowden) got involved, the gig was up.

It's easy to believe that a government agency would overstep its bounds to spy on people it (according to complex laws that well-meaning people misunderstand or disagree with) shouldn't. It's much, much less credible that a large number of US government employees conspired to, say, bomb the world trade center. A conspiracy like that would quickly enlist someone with moral qualms about it, and it just takes one to blow the whistle.

Re: Harvey’s Casino Bomb

#110

They never mentioned how disable the bomb

They used a shaped charge to knock off the detonators from the larger payload. Basically used a smaller, targeted explosion to disable a larger explosion.

Below is a video on how these type of explosions works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCYAr5jEXHo

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