You're pointing down the very best road that all this dragnet surveillance can take us: a war on the unexpected.

Once everything we do, on or off net, is observed and recorded, the only thing that Johnny Law can do is try to check out the things that are unusual: looking for fresh milk. Or wait, maybe you're one of the animal rights folks, and you're trying to figure out a way around the "ag-gag" laws. How does Johnny Law know? He or she doesn't. If you're lucky, like the photographer, they come ask. If not, you're on The List. Maybe you don't get to fly any more. Maybe you just can't get a new job.

We don't know what the security guard told the FBI. They may have exaggerated, lied, or there may have been other circumstances the author of the article didn't mention.

Boston is very touchy and has been, as evidenced by past displays like the Mooninite scare where the called the bomb squad over some cartoon signs with blinking lights.

I have to wonder, though, the way things are, if they were protecting the copyright on the building or because it's filled with liquified natural gas? Then again, it could be both...

I think if some terrorist actually did try to poison the food supply like that, it could very well make you become a suspect for that too. Except I don't recall anything famous like that actually having happened in the recent past (correct me if I'm wrong).

So you are advocating a reactive approach where we constantly look to the last terrorist attack as the pattern for what the next terrorist attack will look like?

Yeah, I think the models need to be recent terrorist attacks, not potential ones that people can dream of on a whim. Kind of like how judges work reactively, they don't make rulings on cases they haven't seen yet.

> Yeah, I think the models need to be recent terrorist attacks

Bruce Schneier disagrees: https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2005/09/terrorists_...

Exactly - if it is good enough for the TSA... </s>

> To get the story about what straight?

If the security guard suspicion was justified. The FBI found out that is wasn't. Case closed. They did everything by the book. And are you telling me that they shouldn't?

I'm telling you they shouldn't.

They should exercise some judgment, realize some bored-ass security guards (think about how dull it must be to guard a site like that) made a report just to feel important, and then toss it right in the trash can.

It was a guy taking pictures of a structure in public. No, the FBI should not be tracking him down.

So you want the FBI to risk establishing cognitive biases instead of going out and finding the truth?

Yes, except I want them to establish cognitive biases. Let's leave off that 'risk' part, as the risk is already inherent when you bark up wrong trees throughout the investigation. (time loss is the result of the risk posed by uncertain guesswork)

Let's get rid of that 'instead' you used, too. Sneaky! There's no reason for 'establish cognitive bias' and 'find the truth' to be exclusive from one another, is there?

So here's the new cleaned up version I think I can get behind :

"I would like the FBI to establish cognitive biases as a tool towards the goal of finding the truth."

Much better!

Yeah. Exactly. The FBI chased a dead lead instead of investigating (actually) urgent matters, wasting time and taxpayer money in the process.

The agents may have acted fine. Whoever told them to act, or decided to act on such flimsy circumstances, are the ones who are wrong.

If the agents decided to investigate this at their own discretion perhaps it was a way to instantiate a cross-country vacation within the workplace. That'd be the best we could hope for, because if the agents thought that this guy was a threat (especially given his names' public image and photography portfolio), that's a problem.

You're not at all scared that FBI agents interpret the suspicions of a security guard with greater priority than some random person on the side of the road? I've met plenty of security guards, and a number of them were so grossly under qualified that the thought of them as some sort of authority figure is horrifying, doubly so with FBI backing.