Not probably, definitely. It was a tiny thing, but makes the entire country look foolish by calling into question the effectiveness of billions of dollars spent and a large part of world privacy stripped away. In that way, the white flags are an existential threat to a certain element, and something our grandchildren may be reading about in history class.

If that's the motivation then this is the worst possible response. A ridiculous overreaction with a significant risk that after all this DNA/surveillance/facial recognition/manpower hubbub they don't catch them.

It is without question the motivation.

This simple act has embarrassed an entire industry, including countless highly-paid public officials; the very same people who determine how much resource is dedicated to soothing their bruised egos.

So imagine the police response is this: "Silly prank, we could certainly identify them if we tried, but it's not worth taxpayer money."

All it takes is one person to then point out that if security had been good enough to catch actual terrorists, the suspects would have been caught before or during the act. Then not only is a chunk of the post-9/11 security apparatus exposed for the security theater it is, but the cops look lazy and stupid too.

I understand the easy logic of "oh, but what if they were terrorists", but at the same time, it makes no sense. If you want to blow up a bridge, you don't put explosives at the top of the pillars. You drive an explosives-laden truck to the base, you get out and you leave in a second car. There's nothing anyone can do unless you wait too long to detonate your explosives.

The point is, you cannot prevent all terrorism on home soil through police enforcement. You can choke certain points like airports by doing person-by-person inspections, but you can't do much for land-based transportation infrastructure with millions of autonomous attack vectors. Terrorism is best prevented through political actions.

But that's true no matter what they say. Overreaction can't negate the original foolishness.

At least the current response indicates that the NYPD understands the rough operational equivalence in being able to catch terrorists vs being able to catch people who switch out flags on bridges. IOW, they recognize this as a problem (even though it's unsolvable, hence the reason for security theater rather than actual measures that would prevent terrorism).

The majority of people are probably indifferent to this. But for some reason those people who wouldn't mind NYPD not wasting money on this investigation are less vocal or less influential or something compared to the pro-security-state advocates whose position is "OMG could have been terrorists!" The latter may be mostly bureaucrats in power (perhaps the reason for the overriding influence of this paradigm) worried about it for job security reasons, but the motive doesn't matter.

>The latter may be mostly bureaucrats in power (perhaps the reason for the overriding influence of this paradigm) worried about it for job security reasons, but the motive doesn't matter.

Go talk to some ordinary people sometime and behold how easily swayed they are by cable news soundbites and shit they heard from whatever trusted idiot in their social circle they happen to take seriously for no reason at all. Be sure to have some drugs at the ready for after you're done - you'll need them.

No, it isn't just bureaucrats claiming they could have blown up the bridge. If it were, the FBI wouldn't be gearing up for a nationwide manhunt to track these people down.

It's highly symbolic from a police perspective. We may see it as some kids who watched too many documentaries playing a harmless prank. But let me rephrase that to put that in the frame of mind of the investigators. "Unknown individuals infiltrated a heavily guarded and highly visible piece of crucial infrastructure undetected. Once present, they defaced the public property by removing two American flags, and replacing them with white flags, a typical signal of surrender. The suspects remain at large."

It's about the symbolism, not the act. If NYC, for all its counterterrorism efforts, can't catch these pranksters, it makes the public safety officials look impotent in the face of real threats.

> it makes the public safety officials look impotent in the face of real threats.

They largely are. It's incredibly difficult to stop crimes before they're committed, and prior to any terrorist mania it was generally considered to be outside the scope of police work. Mainly because it requires a security apparatus, and authority, that is in direct conflict with an open democratic society.

Exactly. I'm saying pointing out government impotence was the purpose of the protest, the payload message it was meant to transmit. That should be clear from the symbolic choices of removing the flags, etc. So naturally the powers that be are responding with anger due to that message, mostly because the protestors didn't show just tell, they showed that message, through the government's inability to prevent or apprehend them.

This is the nerf-ball version of challenge to government authority, so instead of Tahrir you get a few kids changing a flag, and instead of a repressive government crackdown, you get increased police investigation. But the mechanisms are the same.

States, whether they be national or local governments, don't react well to open challenges to their authority, and they use every tool at their disposal to prosecute anyone that commits a crime that openly challenges the authority of the government.

Your comment suggests that there is an expectation that police should have the ability to catch these guys. I find that ridiculous. Have you all really become that paranoid that a harmless prank needs to find justice because 'what if it was a terrorist'.

Listen folks, you can't stop terrorism. A determined attacker will just find an easier target. You can't guard everything all the time.

>You can't guard everything all the time.

No, but you can put everyone under the constant threat of imprisonment for nebulous reasons, or no reason at all, and there is some glitch in human reasoning that conflates the two.

> Unknown individuals infiltrated a heavily guarded and highly visible piece of crucial infrastructure undetected.

100,000s of people do that every single day. It is a bridge. That is what bridges do. They carry largely unknown people across a highly visible structure.

I think you are blowing this out of proportion. Or maybe I shouldn't use the word blowing.

Not me. That quote is that of a hypothetical law enforcement officer's view. It doesn't represent my personal opinions. It's an attempt to place ourselves in their shoes to understand their thinking.

If you embarrass powerful people, they will bring all of their power down on you like a ton of bricks if they can.

I just hope the pranksters don't end up in jail.

Well, the police could also "accidentally" think that they have weapons on them when they go to apprehend them... That would probably be worse.

That is exactly it