Yes they do. The DHS even use modified Predator UAV's, which can recce extremely large areas in a single pass: http://www.businessinsider.com/government-domestic-drone-fleet-2012-11 http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/05/Homeland-Security-Drones-Designed-To-Identify-Civilians-Carrying-Guns Take your pick from all of the agency's involved in the Boston episode: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/04/boston-investigation-agencies/64333/ If you really believe that authorities would not have access to the best tech, You need to start waking up a bit. Whether they know how to use it effectively is still my concern.
Of all the agencies I fear in that link, it has to be the Postal police! They will rock up in shorts and f**k your day and steal your stamps!
This is a scary thought. I don't believe that was their intention at all. But, it certainly is now a good example of how it's done. Work is calling but I'd like to weigh in on the "omg they should have seen him with their super tech" conversation in a little bit.
I have seen some, yes. Via manufacturer and military end, as well as a brief look at British Police (Although that was brief, and we are no doubt behind compared to the Americans). Don't mistake that as me saying I've been in the military, mind you. My point is not that the tech isn't better, my point is that although the tech might be better, it ain't going to be so common that they'd be able to rally it to Boston in what was it, a matter of days? It's not a perfect world, and I'd be very doubtful that deployment on any scale of high tech equipment happening as fast as some people believe it can happen. As has been said, this isn't CSI: Boston. Looking at the supposed screenshot posted earlier of the boat, it doesn't look anywhere near as high res as I'd expect from some of the higher end systems, but that could be a source (Leak type, not equipment type) issue. I doubt it based on the image, but you never know. I don't believe they are refused access to tech, I believe they wouldn't have the facilities to get it on site as fast as everyone expects them to have. They did good work, sure, but I doubt they had a trailer with all the coolest drones just sat by waiting for this to happen. Redirecting things like that takes time, and if there are any delays (Even with the urgency of the matter), I doubt they made it to the scene with the best kit before they found the guys most likely responsible with existing equipment. The links you post as rebuttal are dodgy reasons for there being all the hightech stuff there IMO. It all says "Ordered" more than anything else, and "Ordered" doesn't translate to "Have in the field" quickly. Again, having seen from a manufacturers side.
Wouldn't have the facilities? To transfer a drone with 40-hour endurance that can be put into a couple of containers in a matter of hours, a couple of hundred miles up the coast from NY to Boston? Even if you wanted to use the US CPB drone they're in Florida and North Dakota, 24h by roads.
I'm with Krikkit. You seem to underestimate the readiness that certain aspects of the government maintain. The amount of resources the government spends on readiness is beyond comprehension. Having spent time in "Quick Reaction" units within the Military(and time as a civilian), I can assure you that we would have been able to get the tech there within hours if necessary. I believe the tech was there. But, like others have stated, the training was not. And even if they were trained. I feel they could have done better(quicker). My guess is the resources available to them weren't used to the best of their ability.
Since we're now arguing about whether or not law enforcement had access to awesome technology, whether or not they were trained to use it, and whether or not it was deployed (and deployed appropriately), let's all take a moment to remember the timeline of events. Law enforcement released the images of the alleged suspects on Thursday at 5:20 pm (eastern). The first suspect was wounded in a shootout about 8 hours later (approximately 1:00 am (eastern) Friday). Just about 24 hours after the photos were released, news agencies were reporting that the second suspect was located (approximately 7:00-7:30 pm (eastern)) Friday. With all the talk about transferring and deploying drones and super awesome thermal imaging techniques on short notice, it's worth keeping in mind the fact that once the suspects were identified the manhunt took 24 hours.
Wouldn't the assets have been on site after the bombing? They knew a man hunt would be conducted, so why wait until someone has been identified before rolling in the required assets.
Agreed 100% It's easy to get caught up in the details. But overall I think they moved pretty quickly. Job well done in my book.
The timeline start quite a bit earlier than Friday. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100213039/why-did-it-take-the-fbi-four-days-to-find-the-boston-bombers-when-they-had-one-on-file-already/
Did they know a manhunt would ensue? It's easy to look back now and come up with all of the assets that could have been used, but at the time of the bombing law enforcement officials had no idea who they were dealing with. It could have been one person, or it could have been a group of people. For all they know the bombers were on a plane to Iceland. Rather than break the bank calling in every asset in the DOD property list, they called in assets as needed.
Listening to the police scanner online (while it was still online), there was a crap load of stuff going on, they were investigating every noise in basements, ladders against walls that wasn't there the day before all over the city. Thermal imaging is fine and great if you know what direction to point it at in the first place. Also outside of the search zone it was still a semi working city, not just a case of finding a needle in a haystack, but finding a needle in a thousand in a haystack.
I'm pretty sure if you didn't know there was someone hiding in that boat it's not very obvious that there's a person there. If you were looking at a large image of the whole area then if you noticed it at all would just look like a slightly warmer patch - maybe the engine/electrics on the boat had been used recently. There were probably hundreds of slightly unusual things (noises reported, ladders etc. as mentioned above) that were steadily getting investigated, I'd have thought part of the reason for stopping the lockdown would be to increase the chance of someone seeing something - maybe once it was obvious that he wasn't just running round shooting people at random and most people in the city had seen the pictures of him it should have been lifted sooner. Would have been better for the city as well, both economically and to show that life will go on and an entire city not shutdown by a single terrorist.
Jesus, really got the hindsight brigade going here. You all spend way too much time watching Bourne movies and playing Crysis. In my force I'm lucky to find a hammer and some elastic bands.
