EARLY WARNING ALARM

Sen. Ron Paul: Militarized Police ‘More Frightening’ Than Boston Bombers

By Elizabeth C.

FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE RON PAUL says the “unprecedented” militarized manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers is more terrifying than the pressure-cooker bombing.

“The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city,” the Libertarian-leaning Republican said on the Lew Rockwell website, which touts itself as the online news source for itself as conservatives and Tea Partiers. “This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.”

Nineteen-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction for allegedly planting a bomb that killed three and injured hundreds during Boston’s Patriot’s Day holiday. His 26-year-old brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev died during a confrontation with police four days later.

But the younger Tsarnaev escaped by car during the same confrontation. As thousands of law enforcement descended on the Boston suburbs to search for him, authorities shut down mass transit, shuttered schools and government offices, and instituted a “shelter in place” order. The entire city was effectively paralyzed as authorites went door-to-door in search of Tsarnaev.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has defended his decision the decision to effectively shutdown all of Boston. “I think we did what we should have done and were supposed to do with the always-imperfect information that you have at the time,” Patrick told reporters Friday.

But Paul points out that despite the militarized tactics, police actually failed at finding Tsarnaev.

“While the media crowed that the apprehension of the suspects was a triumph of the new surveillance state – and, predictably, many talking heads and Members of Congress called for even more government cameras pointed at the rest of us – the fact is none of this caught the suspect,” the failed Republican presidential candidate wrote. “…. He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police. And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.”

The spectacle of seeing SWAT teams, military tanks, and thousands of law enforcement created the perception of a “military coup in a far off banana republic,” Sen. Paul complained.

“Sadly, we have been conditioned to believe that the job of the government is to keep us safe, but in reality the job of the government is to protect our liberties. Once the government decides that its role is to keep us safe, whether economically or physically, they can only do so by taking away our liberties. That is what happened in Boston…This is unprecedented and is very dangerous.”

Meanwhile, in a Tuesday morning press conference, President Obama defended charges that the FBI dropped the ball in its probe of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was under suspicion for terrorist views by Russian authorities.

“It’s not as if the FBI did nothing,’’ Obama said. “They not only investigated the older brother, they interviewed the older brother, they concluded that there were no signs he was engaging in extremist activity.”

He also pointed out that Boston has returned to business as usual.

“You don’t get a sense that anyone is intimidated when they go to Fenway Park a couple of days after the bombing. And there are joggers right now, I guarantee you, all throughout Boston and Cambridge and Watertown,” he said. “We’re not going to stop living our lives because of warped, twisted individuals trying to intimidate us.’’