I've been talking about evidence, not "proof". Besides, a witness trying to pick out a criminal from a lineup is generally neither threatened or bribed.
"Pissing a few dozen people off" would be one thing. The public shooting of an innocent man is another. So are hundreds of fruitless arrests, and high-profile raids - not to mention thousands of largely useless stop-and-searches - which piss off the very community best placed to help the police.
I'm reading bits of Seymour Hersh's book Chain of Command, which includes a chapter on the intelligence failures before 9/11. I've only skimmed that, but apparently FBI agents were concerned about the flight students; further, the CIA reported that bin Laden was planning to attack America soon. They had good evidence, but it wasn't acted on.
It's easy to see how the horror of that hindsight could drive police to follow even the flimsiest leads. And, in principle, I don't disagree with you - I'd rather they followed a lot of negative leads than missed a positive one. In practice, though, it's not ony wrecking innocent lives, it's damaging their ability to get those positive leads, and contributing to the atmosphere of enmity which stimulates terrorism in the first place.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-08-15 03:38 am (UTC)"Pissing a few dozen people off" would be one thing. The public shooting of an innocent man is another. So are hundreds of fruitless arrests, and high-profile raids - not to mention thousands of largely useless stop-and-searches - which piss off the very community best placed to help the police.
I'm reading bits of Seymour Hersh's book Chain of Command, which includes a chapter on the intelligence failures before 9/11. I've only skimmed that, but apparently FBI agents were concerned about the flight students; further, the CIA reported that bin Laden was planning to attack America soon. They had good evidence, but it wasn't acted on.
It's easy to see how the horror of that hindsight could drive police to follow even the flimsiest leads. And, in principle, I don't disagree with you - I'd rather they followed a lot of negative leads than missed a positive one. In practice, though, it's not ony wrecking innocent lives, it's damaging their ability to get those positive leads, and contributing to the atmosphere of enmity which stimulates terrorism in the first place.