terrorism
Court: Mistaking a Mexican for a Middle Eastern terrorist not profiling if he's doing other suspicious things
By adamg - 12/17/10 - 4:41 pmA federal appeals court ruled today that MBTA cops had the right to arrest a Mexican man at the Sullivan Square T stop after the Madrid bombings because he and other "Middle Eastern" men in his van seemed to be doing the same things terrorists might do before trying to blow up the station.
Supporters of alleged terrorist fill federal courtroom
By adamg - 7/21/10 - 7:26 amJ.M. Lawrence reports on a hearing in US District Court yesterday for Tarek Mehanna, a Sudbury man charged with terrorism:
... There were so many supporters for Mehanna, who is accused of providing material support to a terrorist organization, that an overflow courtroom was created where they could view the brief proceedings on closed circuit television.
Several young boys, who waved at Mehanna as he entered the courtroom, wore hand-me-down suits a few sizes too big for them. One woman wore a headscarf with another scarf covering her lower face as she tried to soothe a fussy infant. ...
Transit Police move from fare gates to the trains themselves
By adamg - 5/14/10 - 7:08 amMBTA police were busy making sweeps this morning through trains at Maverick and Park Street (Red Line toward Alewife). Mediacrity tweets she saw T cops in every station on the Red Line from Porter to South Station and at the Silver Line stop at South Station.
How hawala works
By adamg - 5/14/10 - 6:57 amAssociated Press explains the system and its connection to yesterday's raids.
Non-terrorist harpsichordist demands apology from the MBTA
By adamg - 3/19/08 - 3:30 pmGeoff Edgers talks to one of those guys detained at Logan despite not being a terrorist, and now he's vowing to fight the T over the whole mess. The T basically says: Tough, that's the price of freedom in a post-9/11 world.
Earlier:
The man who wasn't a terrorist.
Does Homeland Security know about this?
By adamg - 12/12/07 - 10:46 amIf you do something stupid like stand in front of the Federal Reserve Bank in this post-9/11 world and aim a camera at the building, don't be surprised if some angry federale leaps out at you and demands you stop immediately. That's why God gave us Google Street View:
Mark Baard has posted a bunch of Google Street View photos of local federal offices.
Earlier:
But where are the incriminating photos?
Watching the LNG tankers go by
By adamg - 3/23/07 - 7:47 amMarilora lives close enough to the harbor to be able to take pictures of the giant LNG tankers from her bedroom window. So she takes great interest in reports on the damage a terrorist attack on one could do, like incinerating everybody within a one-mile radius:
Should I take comfort in the fact that I will probably just be incinerated instantly? ... I know that we need LNG and the terminals have to go somewhere, but to have one in such a populated area is just such a huge risk, especially considering the Homeland Security Department has basically done didly squat to protect our ports from the possibility of terrorist attacks. ...
Our terror envy
By adamg - 3/16/07 - 7:52 amRob Bellinger ponders last week's Phoenix front page o' doom (in which the immolation of the entire waterfront at the hands of a jihadi blowing up an LNG tanker is gleefully described) and other indications of our terrorism obsession and he wonders:
... As Boston tries to find its terror target significance, I have to wonder: is it envy or is it really just guilt? Perhaps a mix of both.
Ed. note: At least when it comes to the Phoenix, Rob underestimates the fact that some reporters and editors just LOVE working on stories about things that go boom. In college, I did a similar cover story analyzing in great detail what would happen should a cement truck lose its brakes on the hill down to the train tracks that bisected the campus just as a freight train carrying deadly chemicals was speeding through the crossing - complete with a giant red bullseye map showing exactly which parts of the campus would be turned into dead zones. Yes, it's been downhill for me ever since.
Who's attaching circuit boards to our bridges?
By adamg - 1/31/07 - 1:20 pmUpdate: The Globe and Channel 4 now report that officials are finding these things all over the place. Storrow Drive is shut down. The Red Line is shut down between Park Street and Kendall.
On a morning when the lead story in the Globe announced the T's new random-bag inspections have turned up nothing, the Sullivan Square T stop and I-93 both get shut down so police could blow up a suspicious device found on a girder above the station. The Globe quotes a guy who ran toward the station to see what all the commotion was about:
"It was nerve racking," said Robert A. Ellington, 29, who ran to Sullivan Square to investigate when he heard whirl of television news helicopters. "It's scary, but exciting though."
Private Idaho reports:
So a friend of the family, Christie called my wife at home to say "Please help! my cell phone is running out of power and they've closed the subway and I'm stuck somewhere called Wellington Station!!! Can you come get me?" ...
Kimberly wound up walking to work because the buses got so overcrowded:
... It's only about 3 miles but crossing the bridge with the wind off the Harbor is a bit much but I trucked it and feel great! I should keep it up, an extra 3 to 6 miles a day would do wonders plus my daily workout. ...
Question of the day: If you are going to bomb a subway station, why on earth would you pick Sullivan Square?!
Cindy and Jeff at SmartRoutes made it official: This morning was an eventful Wednesday.
Note: Channel 4 has the best photos so far of the thing in question.
If anyone can take pictures of turkeys, then the terrorists have won
By adamg - 1/26/07 - 5:00 pmSushiesque reports a security guard at the federal Volpe transportation building ordered her to delete a photo she'd just taken of Mr. Gobbles, the wild turkey that hangs around there.
The photos they don't want you to see (by somebody else).
