Miami Vice-Grip

Matt Welch | November 29, 2005

This shit's starting to get old:

Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.

"This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there," Fernandez said.

1) Didn't some or most of the Sept. 11 hijackers have perfectly valid IDs, indicating nothing out of the ordinary?
2) Did I miss the part about them hijacking a bank?
3) Aren't there some kind of rules against blatantly using a police force to spread fear propaganda? If there aren't, shouldn't there be?

Whole thing here, link via Boing Boing. I suppose we can be thankful that at least they're not using federal troops for the job, though even joking about that makes me feel like buying gold and stocking up on canned goods.