I guess the only place to start is the truly heinous crime itself. It was a horrific act of cowardice that left three people dead, hundreds maimed and thousands, perhaps millions, terrorized.
I do not want to try to minimize that in any way, shape or form. Decisive action was required to bring the perpetrators to justice. The first bomber died on the run, the second is now in custody and should face the full brunt of what the American legal system can bring to bear.
All of that being said, however, does not excuse the ensuing actions of authorities, the media, and, yes, even the citizenry.
The initial response of authorities was fine. Assess the ongoing threat, secure the scene, collect the evidence, launch the investigation.
The initial media coverage was also fine. Tell the story. What do we know? What don't we know? What are the next steps?
Then it all went off the rails. Late Thursday, the FBI released photos of two suspects, 26- and 19-year-old brothers. Later that night there was a robbery at a Seven-Eleven near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that left a campus police officer dead and the owner of a Mercedes car-jacked, but uninjured.
Police tracked the car to the Boston suburb of Watertown, where they exchanged fire with the suspects killing the older brother. The younger brother escaped.
This is where the story gets ridiculous.
Let's take stock of where we are at this point. We know we have two disaffected youth who perpetrated a ghastly bombing on their own, using improvised devices they learned how to make on the Internet. One of them is dead; the other is on the run.
Is the fugitive armed and dangerous? Probably. Is there an ongoing threat to the public? Possibly.
Is it a grave, imminent and widespread threat that warrants turning half of Massachusetts into a police state? As exciting as that sounds, probably not.
It actually makes me long for the days when the FBI and police would have frustratingly told reporters "nothing to see here, go back to your business, everything is under control," then quietly and efficiently gone out and captured the guy without panicking 4.6 million Bostonians.
But no, not this time. This time we are going to deploy thousands of local, state and federal police-heck we'll even throw in some military personnel-to completely shut down an entire, major U.S. city in an unprecedented show of force for the purpose of, as one blogger put it, "locating a 19-year-old stoner with a couple of guns and, perhaps, a pipe bomb or two."
I can only imagine what the direct cost of this operation ends up being, not to mention the hundreds of millions in lost wages and business. And for what? Every expert I saw interviewed said the increase to public safety was marginal at best and the methodology ineffectual.
The media overreaction wasn't much better. I heard one viewer describe it as "gripping." Okay, if gripping is endless, minute-by-minute reports about NOTHING, then I guess it was gripping. In the meantime, a massive industrial accident in Texas that decimated a town, an earthquake in China that killed hundreds, and many other equally, if not more, compelling stories were relegated to the ticker at the bottom of the screen.
What disturbs me most about all of this is how accepting Americans (and Canadians) have become toward the erosion of our basic rights. There was a time in the United States, not that long ago, Americans would have rightfully reacted to authorities conducting a house-to-house search as if they were jack-booted thugs.
Hardly anyone batted an eyelash when U.S. authorities were originally going to waive the second suspect's legal rights despite the fact he is an American citizen. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed when the administration turned the alleged bomber's hotel room into a courtroom Monday to ensure due process was respected.
Canadian authorities were also quick to make political hay out of Boston. RCMP announced Monday they had thwarted a terrorist attack on a Via Rail train. Well, they admitted, there was no actual imminent threat, but these guys were potentially planning something and might have had connections to al-Queda. What connections? We may never know now because the investigation was cut short, something, according to former intelligence agents, they don't often do because they are after the big fish.
Not surprisingly, in the wake of Boston and the oh-so-convenient announcement of the foiled terrorist plot here, the Canadian Government re-introduced Draconian anti-terror legislation that threatens to undermine the Charter rights of every one of us.
Two provisions of the bill-now being rushed through Parliament no doubt to take advantage of Canadians' fear following Boston-would allow authorities to imprison people for up to a year merely on suspicion of being involved in terrorism (preventative arrest) or suspicion of having knowledge of terrorism (investigative hearings).
I'm not simply picking on the Conservatives here. These provisions were originally passed into law by the Liberals -and they will likely support it again-following the September 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. The law lapsed in 2007.
It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. Just ask Maher Arar or Liban Hussein.
Fear is insidious. I struggled with self-censorship writing this column for fear of being labelled disrespectful of the victims or sympathetic to terrorism.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I am appalled by the behaviour of these bombers, I feel deep compassion for the victims and I take terrorism very seriously.
I also take the freedom we have, hard-fought by previous generations, very seriously. We should never be made to feel guilty for questioning authority or opposing extreme legislative measures. The potential for abuse of these powers is far greater than the potential for investigative benefit and an affront to democracy.
