Suspicious ferry riders not so suspicious after all
Over at the P.I., they're already gloating about this:
As you'll recall, the P.I. - unlike the Times - refused to run the photo of the men, due to "civil liberties and privacy concerns, which editors felt outweighed the newsworthiness of the images." We're all for those same concerns here at Seattle Crime Blog. Problem is, this isn't a civil liberties issue.
These men were photographed in a public place. There were no names associated with their faces, nor even any information as to what country they hailed from. It's no secret that the Puget Sound's ferry system is a shockingly vulnerable terrorist target, and - rightly or wrongly - two Middle Eastern men taking photos in an obscure location of the boat is going to raise questions. Such is the world we live in.
And in their haste to earn praise as a good liberal paper, editors at the P.I. got ahead of themselves: if you'll recall, the FBI wasn't saying that they knew the men were terrorists. They never claimed that if found, the pair would be locked away at Guantanamo and waterboarded 'til the cows come home. They just wanted to talk with them...and if what happened when the pair came forth two weeks ago is any indication, it would have been determined that the men's actions were innocent enough to warrant them walking free.
Sure, the P.I. was right this time. But it would be foolish to underplay the threat of Islamic extremism in the name of political correctness. And, like a certain neighborhood blog we recently called out for not doing their job, the P.I. failed to serve the public's interest by not publishing the photos in question. More concerned about the feelings of two foreigners than the safety of the community, the paper's editors allowed their political biases to impede on good editorial judgment.
The FBI has called off a global manhunt for two men who looked Middle Eastern and were spotted snapping pictures and demonstrating "suspicious behavior" on a Washington ferry last summer.Turns out the duo was really just a pair of businessmen from the EU, who visited Seattle last July and wanted to take photos of the boat's interior (since their home country supposedly doesn't have car ferries). So much for an "inordinate interest."
[...]
Photos of the pair, taken by Washington State Ferries employees, were released to the news media in August in an effort to identify and locate them, after an investigation found that they "showed an inordinate interest in the operation of the shipboard systems," the FBI said at the time.
As you'll recall, the P.I. - unlike the Times - refused to run the photo of the men, due to "civil liberties and privacy concerns, which editors felt outweighed the newsworthiness of the images." We're all for those same concerns here at Seattle Crime Blog. Problem is, this isn't a civil liberties issue.
These men were photographed in a public place. There were no names associated with their faces, nor even any information as to what country they hailed from. It's no secret that the Puget Sound's ferry system is a shockingly vulnerable terrorist target, and - rightly or wrongly - two Middle Eastern men taking photos in an obscure location of the boat is going to raise questions. Such is the world we live in.
And in their haste to earn praise as a good liberal paper, editors at the P.I. got ahead of themselves: if you'll recall, the FBI wasn't saying that they knew the men were terrorists. They never claimed that if found, the pair would be locked away at Guantanamo and waterboarded 'til the cows come home. They just wanted to talk with them...and if what happened when the pair came forth two weeks ago is any indication, it would have been determined that the men's actions were innocent enough to warrant them walking free.
Sure, the P.I. was right this time. But it would be foolish to underplay the threat of Islamic extremism in the name of political correctness. And, like a certain neighborhood blog we recently called out for not doing their job, the P.I. failed to serve the public's interest by not publishing the photos in question. More concerned about the feelings of two foreigners than the safety of the community, the paper's editors allowed their political biases to impede on good editorial judgment.
