Boston Attacks: Goodbye to Paranoia?

“We know what sites you are on, we know where you are calling, we know everything about you.” In January of 2011, FBI agents bluntly advised Tamerlan Tsarnaev to keep quiet, having failed to find anything of which to accuse him. In an investigation initiated at the request of the Russian anti-terrorist unit, American police found nothing punishable in the young Chechen immigrant’s plots. Yet two years later on April 15, Tamerlan and his younger brother Dzhokhar, both U.S. citizens,* placed their bombs along the route of the Boston Marathon. Will the U.S. abandon itself to spinelessness?

Obama Reiterates His Promise To Close Guantanamo

On principle, Barack Obama ordered an administrative investigation of a potential security breakdown, but the few Republicans who wanted to blame the government for alleged negligence in the face of terrorism barely found an echo in public opinion. That’s because times have changed.

The post-9/11 ultrasecurity frenzy has been followed by the gradual rise of an era of conscience. One sign among others: When the legal experts at the Center for Constitutional Rights criticized the authorities for having cut corners on procedures by delaying informing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of his rights after his arrest, they did not suffer any ridicule.

Lindsay Graham, nostalgic for the Bush era, demanded that the terrorist be labeled an “enemy combatant” and handed over to the CIA to be put into an army prison. On April 30, Barack Obama reaffirmed the rule and the effectiveness of civilian criminal courts in response to Graham’s request. Moreover, two weeks after the attacks in Boston the president reaffirmed his promise — set aside for four years — to close Guantanamo prison, in which half of the 160 detainees imprisoned without due process for 11 years are taking part in a hunger strike.

The White House runs little political risk. According to a CNN-Time poll published May 1, six out of 10 Americans are reluctant to restrict their civil rights in the name of security. Just as many people think that resorting to emergency measures would be useless against “lone wolves” — spontaneous terrorists similar to the Boston bombers.

The great secret machine of “the war on terror” maintained by Obama certainly had its cause where bin Laden was concerned, as it disrupted the hierarchy of al-Qaida. But for all of that, in June of 2010 only the vigilance of New York City street vendors led to the detection of a car bomb parked in Times Square — just in time. “The CIA didn’t prevent the explosion of a bomb heading toward Detroit in 2009,” mused Richard Clarke, the former security advisor to Bill Clinton. “It was luck! A faulty ignition in the explosive of the young Nigerian terrorist.”**

Does fatalism explain the return of reasonable security? On April 19, the 30,000 inhabitants of Watertown, a suburb of Boston, were asked to remain in their homes while police searched each house for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, flouting the Constitution. This incredible and unprecedented operation was chiefly meant as a warning to future amateur terrorists. Evidence of U.S. determination to obtain justice as a deterrent is also fueled by the energy of despair.

*Editor’s note: Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a permanent resident of the U.S., not an American citizen.

**Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.