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« Gore's carbon footprint continued | Main | Citizen Schlesinger » Thursday, March 1, 2007tERROR I mentioned yesterday that a traffic counter chained to a pole in downtown Boston was detonated by the bomb squad. This story was not widely reported in the local press. (The Globe hasn't reported on it, as far as I can tell.) See the previous post for links to TV news coverage. And so far, no traffic-counting firm CEO has apologized or resigned. The well-known security technologist Bruce Schneier (The Economist has called him a "security guru") said something depressing/amusing about the incident on his blog today: It's not just the Mooninite blinkies. In 2004, the Boston police harrassed a protester by pretending he might be standing on a bomb. I'm beginning to think that something is seriously wrong with the police chain of command in Boston. Boston PD: Putting the "error" in "terror." I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Ouch! (Thanks, Boing Boing, for pointing out Schneier's comment.) Why is Boston so detonation-happy? Last week, I spoke off the record to a person of my acquaintance who works in City Hall, and this person said: "Two words: Homeland Security." It's not the BPD, this person claimed; it's the Homeland Security types who've moved into City Hall who are exceedingly "nervous." In a comment posted to Schneier's blog, one of his readers is even less charitable: The most plausible explanation is a pile of Federal anti-terrorism funding, sitting around in a municipal budget, waiting idly for something to do, and hoping for renewal with the new fiscal year. The people who write annual reports for the city need expenditure line items, and don't need to include any press clippings with the document they submit. The personnel and material costs of this "anti-terrorism" action will surely be itemized, and used to justify future anti-terror funding. OK, Globe Spotlight Team! Time to mobilize. Let's investigate this funny business. READ MORE FROM BRAINIAC: Attack of the Mooninites! | Eat your heart out P.T. Barnum | Son of Mooninite! | Panic in the Hub | Marketing Gone Awry | Mooninite Photo Op | Do the Mooninites have a posse? | Malden vs. Mooninites | Mooninite missives 1 | Mooninite missives 2 | Zebro video | Red Sox vs. Mooninites | Danger Bomb Clock | Mooninite kudos | Mooninite Man sighted | Mooninite guru? | Mooninite mockery |
Posted by Joshua Glenn at 12:10 PM
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