It’s kind of a “perfect storm” situation. SWAT teams were developed to deal with hostage situations. Many police departments, with help from the Feds, have organized and armed SWAT teams, even in small, sleepy towns. Yet hostage situations are exceedingly rare, especially in small towns, so these SWAT teams, who otherwise would have nothing to do, have been turned to fighting the Drug War, and busting down the doors, and shooting the pets, of small-time dealers, (not to mention hundreds of innocents).
Then, along comes a “real” hostage situation, probably their first ever. This can’t help but excite the police. You know, “Finally!” And, of course, there’s the blowback that would come from ignoring, or screwing up, a real situation for them to consider. Small wonder most don’t first consider whether it’s a prank. It’s a situation that works in the favor of the assholes.
The fact is, few towns need a SWAT team. And having one only means you have to find a use for it. It’s a recipe for disaster.
It did happen in the real world–a fucken SWAT team was called to her mother’s house. If someone did that to my mom, “Meh” would not be my response.
That’s what I was thinking–the author’s mother is damned lucky she answered the phone. Heavily armed men busting through a door in search of an armed/hostile person is, as you say, a recipe for disaster.
Really? Have you ever tried to apply for a loan, get a credit card, a library card, a phone plan? Buy a car? Get a job?
How about get a kid into a school? Or (in Canada) go the hospital/doctors office.
You need a piece of paper that proves you’re a real person, and that you’ve been a real person to other people for several years for most of those things.
Thats a different beast. We’re talking about “online” here. Needing an ID to buy a beer is a very different thing than the belief that we need to be on Twitter or Facebook constantly broadcasting everything way say to the whole of the globe with no discrimination on who we’re talking to. Broadcasting to the universe, and then realizing that the universe can hear us; this perplexes me. Of course it can, why else would you broadcast to everyone, if you didn’t want everyone to potentially hear you?
There is a difference between having proof of identity, and feeling that we need to leave tracks to “exist” in society. If I were to enable a group to validate my “existence” it wouldn’t be the unwashed strangers of the internet, it would be my family and close friends.
It’s an escalation of prank pizza orders.
It is bullshit that people can get away with wasting tax dollars and intimidating fellow Americans by calling in fake armed hostage situations with impunity. At the very least all police calls to local precincts should be recorded (hey, maybe the NSA can help).
Why do you assume it’s about personal validation? I hate to break it to you, but Pizza Hut doesn’t have a Twitter account to validate its existence. If I were an independent music producer, or artist, or even a person with a small business… I’d probably have a Twitter account. just because you can’t see what the value is, it doesn’t mean that it might not be a relevant or valuable tool for someone else.
I say that because I read the article. I didn’t say it was useless.
If only.
And, if only the good folks of Boing Boing wrote about such things so we could be better informed.
Still unsure if the call had been real or fake, the police called my mother’s house phone. My mother didn’t answer. They decided to call one more time.
I want that person to be in charge of my town’s SWAT.
Well, obviously. The police aren’t doing a damned thing about it now. They’re happy being led around by their prosthetic dicks–oop, guns.
I’m sure when cops start getting blasted in the tits by innocent homeowners reacting to war-level besiegement we’ll start seeing a fucking change FINALLY.
Seriously though, I propose that anyone caught SWATTING even once should be allowed to be let off on parole. The frequent check-ins should then be executed with a live-ammo SWAT team at unknown times, in unknown places under full assholishness protocol, setting the ultimate example that if you SWAT someone, you’ll get SWATTED back, constantly. You’ll never get to feel safe and secure, until your sentence is over.
I mean, as long as we’re wasting money on even having SWAT teams, we might as well put them to use against some real terrorists.
- No. Personal debt is a cancer on our society. I believe people should live within their means and save up for purchases if they don’t have the discretionary cash on hand. So that’s what I do.
- No, see above.
- Yes, but you by no means have to give them accurate information to do so.
- No, prepaid is often a much better deal anyway. Especially if you don’t use a data plan.
- Yes, but again, you don’t need credit to buy a car. If you do, you’re gambling that the financial markets won’t collapse again, and I have no confidence that they won’t seeing as nothing’s been done to fix them. Therefore I buy cars with cash on hand, usually used, and the title transfer is done via the DMV/DOL, not twitter or facebook.
- Yes, but an employer doesn’t have a reasonable excuse to look at any of my personal life on the web. They can screw off if they want my facebook or twitter handles. That’s none of their goddamn business. How would you react to a prospective employer asking to inspect your car, or home? Or asking for a long list of your friends and their phone numbers and addresses. They may ask for a few references. They may not ask for my phone’s addressbook.
It’s kind of poignant that there’s only one SWAT guy there that the sniper doesn’t identify as an enemy combatant.
I thought she had in mind the sort of advice like: if you’re leaving the house, you tell someone where you’re going (possibly including phone numbers and addresses); if you meet someone for the first time, do it in a public place; walk down lighted streets. That sort of thing. A sort of generalized notion that you protect yourself by acting publicly and documenting your intentions. That doesn’t translate neatly to how to protect yourself on the Internet. And of course, social media sites – Facebook and Twitter, particularly – have always advertised their basic use to involve publishing details about your daily activities.
And, even then, I’m pretty sure those women who were claiming to have been attacked by SJWs for adopting a pro-gg stance were just collateral damage from the morons attacking any non-penis-having Twitter user.
Where is validation discussed in the article?
Can’t imagine why she’s on Twitter. Nopenopenope.
Ahh, I see. I think you misread the article. The quote is:
The point she’s making is that you need to be trackable in the real world, but that it’s problematic at best and dangerous at worst online.
An escalation of prank pizza orders would involve subscribing someone to various goods and services, not sending armed men to their house with the expectation that they might need to shoot someone…
