Have You Seen the "bin Laden" Punchcard?

The FBI has finally transcribed its vital records from cuneiform on stone tablets to the newfangled electronical vacuum-tube brains, according to Slate. It's becoming a little clearer how a gang of medieval throwbacks operating out of caves managed to blindside us.

Comments

[Lurker Kurt]

The strongest case for smaller government and Libertariansim in general is:

What does government do well?

[Sandy]

What does government do well?

Well, there's killing people and wasting money.

[Larry A]

"Welcome to your new job at the FBI. Set your watch back 30 years."

Every time these guys execute a search warrant you see them carrying away the perp's PC. I wonder what they actually do with it?

[Sandy]

I've actually read that they get pretty flummoxed if you use an OS other than Windows. They have some basic tools and are not the hackers you read about in Tom Clancy novels.

"It appears you are trying to scour a web drive for evidence. Would you like help with this feature?

* Yes
* No
* Die, Clippy, Die Already"

[Timothy]

Every time these guys execute a search warrant you see them carrying away the perp's PC. I wonder what they actually do with it?

Play Rainbow 6, pretend to be good at their jobs.

[Jon H]

"Every time these guys execute a search warrant you see them carrying away the perp's PC. I wonder what they actually do with it?"

You know all those cute chicks on MySpace?

They're really middle-aged male FBI agents.

[Deus ex Machina]

For agents in the field today, these changes still seem like they're a long way off. In New York, only about 100 agents out of 2,000 have BlackBerries

Jack Bauer would have a tough time working at the FBI.

[David Director Friedman]

"Every time these guys execute a search warrant you see them carrying away the perp's PC. I wonder what they actually do with it?"

About a decade ago, I had a guest speaker for my class who described himself as the only computer cop in Silicon Valley. One of his comments was that if a police officer admits to knowing anything about computers, he gets assigned to searching hard drives for evidence, which is a boring job and not what he joined the force for. Hence rational police officers who are computer literate don't admit it.

[Pro Libertate]

Every time these guys execute a search warrant you see them carrying away the perp's PC. I wonder what they actually do with it?

Larry A,

Build their network, one confiscated PC at a time.