Thank you to the Men in Khaki
I live near Boston, and the whole region is in an uproar over the bombing. It's terrifying, it's disruptive, and the bombers are getting just what they wanted, but that's not the point of this note.
On the news, when the FBI speaks, a man or woman dressed in plain dark colors stands and tells you Things. That man stands on the shoulders of many whom you will never meet. They are people you may know, or may not, doing things all the time to keep us safe. They are the shadowy underground that persecutes wackos with an anarchy fetish (in the wacko's mind at least) and watch the internet for downloads of material that is so vile that you cannot even dream there is a market for such things. Our benign ignorance is because of these people, who working in a government job in a gray building with furloughs and budget cuts, are doing their jobs Right Now. Every day. They make our world better by not existing in a public eye. They are the "people" when the Talking Heads say that they have "people" working on it.
I am absolutely confident that moments after the bombings these people had video in their custody and began the hunt and dissection. These people know their jobs, and know who and what to look for. Our enemies do not exist like they used to; war in our world is more death by a thousand knives than all-out aggression (which is expensive and must be done by nations). Knives in a dark room where espionage comes over cables. Thousands of people, within and without of the country, seek to harm. You didn't hear about them? Good. It means they were caught before they blew. Or they are being watched even now.
I never really appreciated what "government" workers were about before. More and more, I appreciate the machine as much as the product. For every talking head there's a hundred people sifting through video feeds pixel by pixel and correlating evidence towards fact and not the frenetic hyperventilating supposition of the news agencies. For that, I thank you.
Go get 'em, boys.
On the news, when the FBI speaks, a man or woman dressed in plain dark colors stands and tells you Things. That man stands on the shoulders of many whom you will never meet. They are people you may know, or may not, doing things all the time to keep us safe. They are the shadowy underground that persecutes wackos with an anarchy fetish (in the wacko's mind at least) and watch the internet for downloads of material that is so vile that you cannot even dream there is a market for such things. Our benign ignorance is because of these people, who working in a government job in a gray building with furloughs and budget cuts, are doing their jobs Right Now. Every day. They make our world better by not existing in a public eye. They are the "people" when the Talking Heads say that they have "people" working on it.
I am absolutely confident that moments after the bombings these people had video in their custody and began the hunt and dissection. These people know their jobs, and know who and what to look for. Our enemies do not exist like they used to; war in our world is more death by a thousand knives than all-out aggression (which is expensive and must be done by nations). Knives in a dark room where espionage comes over cables. Thousands of people, within and without of the country, seek to harm. You didn't hear about them? Good. It means they were caught before they blew. Or they are being watched even now.
I never really appreciated what "government" workers were about before. More and more, I appreciate the machine as much as the product. For every talking head there's a hundred people sifting through video feeds pixel by pixel and correlating evidence towards fact and not the frenetic hyperventilating supposition of the news agencies. For that, I thank you.
Go get 'em, boys.