First off, I am glad that you did pay attention to these small details, and picked up on them. Most wouldn't have. Second, I know you don't doubt it, but you absolutley did the right thing in making the calls that you did. As far as how it was initially handled, I don't know. On the surface, it seems completley inappropriate on the part of the FBI. Chances are, it never went deeper than the surface until your police buddy was able to find the right buttons to push and get something done. But, that being said, I always try to see the glass half full, so I would like to think that the initial phone call did spark at least a small sub-surface investigation, and your buddy may have lit the fire under their a$$es to make a move.
I guess my main point as far as the creation of DHS, and all agencies coordinating with each other is that I know for sure that the coordinating and sharing of information is getting better. But, in no way perfect. There is still lots to be done. I feel that it is now as it always has been, the job of every American Citizen to take action when something seems aray. I think part of the problem is that we are scared, but don't want to admit it. People would rather ignore a potential problem and hope it goes away rather than address it. Or worse, the fear of falsly accusing someone will back fire in their face.
"Those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it".
I recall being in Jr High, and that was written at the top of the black board all year long in history class. I saw it everyday, and read it everyday, but honestly never got what it meant until I was much older. I took it as if I didn't do my homework, I'd be sitting in the same seat next year, or worse Summer school.
Two years ago, my step daughter came to me confused about an assignment. She had to compose an essay to prove the above statement. All she could come up with was basically the same thing I thought when I was young. How in the world would she be able to BS her way through 2 full pages based on just that. My response was, well, lets go watch TV. I started with MTV or some other music channel that was playing a bunch of older tunes. She was stunned at the fact that other than the video quality, the video's, clothes, and actions were so similar to what some of the recent trends were. Then I flipped around to find some 80's music. Hmmm, remember, that's when MTV actually came out - you know, when they actually played music on MTV, and reality shows didn't exist. Anyway, she got a good laugh out of ol' Cindy Lauper, Duran Duran, Boy George, but missed the point. You'll never see parachute pants again I explained. Why, because we know how silly they were now, and no one wants to repeat that again. Throughout the afternoon, and the next few days, I weaned her into different assorted shows more suited for the job, eventually watching a 9/11 special on the History channel. Now she understood the significance of the statement. She was old enough at the time to know what she was seeing on the TV. Old enough to partially understand what was going on, and why it was happening. And damn sure old enough to realize that she didn't want it to happen again. She has seen the twin towers up close and personal several times, and remembers the sheer pride that many of the office workers had in the location of their office. She remembers me talking about the car bombings that took place a few years before right beneath her very feet, and she remembers discussing it with one of my old neighbors as he detailed what it was like to feel the ground shake in NYC only to find later that his car was essentially vaporized in the explosion. Now, she got it. We had forgotten about that, and how vulnerable we were then, and again on 9/11/01.
Maybe a bit off topic there, but worth mentioning none the less.
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