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From the monthly archives: "April 2013"
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Today is the official publication date of Amanda Knox’s memoir, Waiting to be Heard. Our readers know we devoted considerable attention and space in our current book, Law & Disorder, to analysis and interpretation of the investigation and trial of Ms. Knox in Perugia, Italy, for the brutal murder of her flatmate, British college student Meredith Kercher. Perusing the Amazon.com page on Amanda’s book, I was reminded once again why her case remains so important.

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Bombs vs Bullets

Bombs vs Bullets

New Yorker writer John Cassidy has posted a fascinating, provocative and important piece on the magazine’s website, entitled, “What If the Tsarnaevs Had Been the ‘Boston shooters’?” He posits that had the Boston Marathon bombers used assault rifles instead of homemade bombs, killing even more innocent people than they did, the law enforcement and public reaction would have been completely different. We would have considered the brothers “sociopaths and unbalanced post-adolescents” rather than “Islamic extremists.”

Mr. Cassidy goes on to sketch out how the perception of risk would have been completely different, something we have been talking about as recently as our last posting.

A serious analysis of the implications of this counterfactual premise can be enlightening.

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Risk Threshold

The recriminations over whether federal authorities should have identified Tamerlan Tsarnaev before the horrific bombings at the Boston Marathon finish line has brought up an interesting and vital issue, one that gets too little coverage and discussion in the media and public policy. And that is our collective threshold for risk. The simple fact is that while we would like every endeavor in life to have zero risk, we have a sliding scale of tolerances for varying types of risk, which oftentimes have little to do with actual threats.

In fact, it is common for us to muddle three different levels: That which can kill us; that which can hurt us; and that which just makes us feel uncomfortable. And our collective responses often reflect that confusion.

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US Intelligence Community

US Intelligence Community

Every time a mass casualty crime occurs, one question hangs in the air: Why wasn’t the perpetrator identified and stopped beforehand? It seems there are always indicators that, had they been recognized and acted upon, could have prevented the tragedy. And the Boston Marathon bombings are no exception.

Almost as soon as the alleged offenders were identified, word surfaced that the Russians had requested an FBI investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a possibly dangerous Islamic radical. The Bureau found nothing worrisome and closed the case.

Now comes a report that the CIA was also sufficiently concerned to want Tamerlan’s name added to TIDE – the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment – which is kind of a master list that other law enforcement and investigative agencies refer to.

While we retrospectively wish this had been done, from our own experience, we also feel that everyone needs to cut the feds some slack.

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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Now that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has begun talking to authorities and those who knew him are also sharing their insights, two predictable images have emerged.

First, he was a nice normal kid with lots of friends and interests who no one would have suspected had this dark and murderous side. Many of his friends have pledged to testify to his character and some – including his mother – are even in denial that he actually could  be guilty. The second image is of a worshipful younger brother who was heavily influenced and possibly even “brainwashed” by his older sibling Tamerlan.

And while both of these images may be accurate in their own contexts, there is another aspect of his personality that interests me even more.

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