Re:The Capitol Attack Doesn’t Justify Expanding Surveillance
by AnthonyMouse on Saturday January 09, 2021 @04:39PM
(#25705071)
I'm trying to say this carefully, because what they actually did was not okay. People died.
But the amount of "it could have been worse" attributable entirely to what the mob didn't do, is large. And I don't think I'm wrong to attribute a lot of that to the ordinary deterrents being in effect.
Re:The Capitol Attack Doesn’t Justify Expanding Surveillance
by jacquesm on Sunday January 10, 2021 @06:32AM
(#25713637)
There is a good reason we have different categories for 'attempted crime' and 'crime'. What they didn't do is mostly because it didn't work, not because there was no attempt. It all fell apart when their targets got to safety in time. Remove that one element, and take into account that they were given far more time to act because Trump held back deploying the NG and re-calibrate.
Re:The Capitol Attack Doesn’t Justify Expanding Surveillance
by AnthonyMouse on Sunday January 10, 2021 @08:55PM
(#25723273)
> There is a good reason we have different categories for 'attempted crime' and 'crime'.
One of the important ones is the line between planning to do something and actually doing it. It's one thing to stand in a crowd chanting something stupid, quite another if the moment comes and you have to choose.
> What they didn't do is mostly because it didn't work, not because there was no attempt.
What I'm referring to is methods, not goals.
Nobody wants to imagine the level of violence that people are capable of when unrestrained. I don't intend to describe it here, but the world has seen it in other times and other places.
...was that the people they were fairly explicitly targeting escaped the mob, in some cases with very little margin, because of successful use of barricades, delaying tactics, and in one case deadly force.