Warning: Middle Eastern looking guys ride the ferry too
It's possibly irresponsible that this has gone national, but I'm sympathetic to the ferry worker who snapped these pics. If they say these guys were scoping the ferry for vulnerabilities, possibly the very same one I and my family ride all the time, I'll take their word for it.
(Yeah, so I'm prejudiced. So are you. My -- and your -- life is more important than those guys' feelings. I would feel differently if this caused a wave of crimes against Muslims, but it isn't)
I just wonder what this is going to accomplish. Hey everyone, those guys on the ferry look like Arabs! Do we all feel better now?
So far no one has identified them, and predictably it's a bit of a scandal. Some papers refuse to run the pics. Eh. If the FBI is that worried about it, I'll take notice, but just a little.
Of course, all this is really going to do is mean the next attack will probably come from a white convert who passes for Joe Blow American.
posted by RWBB @ 8/29/2007 01:42:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I heard about this. The P-I didn't post the photos, as though that would prevent these guys from being exposed. I loved this quote:
"It's amazing to me to think that, in this internet era, the [paper] is arrogant enough to think that they can 'hide' something from the public. By not publishing the pictures, they are making themselves less relevant -- additionally, through the controversy, they are making the story bigger than it would be otherwise. This is a perfect example of why newspapers, and big media in general, is losing readers by the thousands."
Neither the Seattle Post-Intelligencer nor the rival Seattle Times is the gatekeeper of information in the greater Seattle area anymore, if they ever were. Neither are any of the local TV news stations. There are just so many news outlets and distributors now -- cable networks, websites of out-of-town papers, and blogs -- that no matter what the Seattle Post-Intelligencer did, the people of Seattle were going to see these photos."
http://bojack.org/2007/08/bloggers_vs_the_msm_in_the_eme.html
Yes, the age of the citizen journalist is upon us. The best part is the good quality pocket sized video cameras. Once the "camera" part of camera phones become good enough, we won't need news vans anymore (not really of course, but you catch my drift).
Notice two of the groups most bothers by this: The Chinese government (who regularly cracks down on bloggers -- with Google's and Yahoo's help I might add) and American police officers (who confiscate and destroy videos made of them at scenes -- though red light cameras are just fine).
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