Security Crackdown After Brooklyn Bridge White Flag Stunt

Remember the halcyon days in America before the
advent of the pervasive surveillance state with NSA snoops combing
through our phone calls and emails; license plate cameras on every
corner; top secret no-fly lists from which there is no escape; all
enforced by armored police eager to ignore the tattered privacy
protections of the Fourth Amendment? In those better days, the
stunt in which some rapscallions placed white flags atop the
Brooklyn bridge would have occasioned grumbling from the
authorities that would have amounted to: “Dern kids. Get off my
lawn.”

The Gothamist is
reporting how the police are using all of the tools of modern
forensic science including DNA databases to track down the cell of
white flag scofflaws:

Sources tell the NY Post that the zip
ties used to fasten the aluminum pans over the lights atop the
towers have DNA evidence on them. Now investigators are running the
DNA evidence through their vast database of DNA, and it’s only a
matter of time before a heavily-armed SWAT team crashes through
your ceiling due to a data entry error. Look, there’s a red laser
beam on your forehead right now!

Also from the tabloid of record: “Investigators are also
scouring social media, pulling phone logs and running hundreds of
license plates, police sources said. They are tracking down all
calls made from the bridge around the time the flags were replaced
early Tuesday… Investigators were pulled from homicide,
counterterrorism, intel and transit to hunt down the
infiltrators…” Hey, whatever it takes to bring
these skateboarding teenagers to justice.

In other white flag news, the city is beefing up security not
only on the Brooklyn Bridge but on all other potential terrorist
targets. “The NYPD has already implemented increased security
measures on the Brooklyn Bridge, and multiple agencies are
collaborating with the police on further measures that will
increase the safety of this and other key facilities,” First Deputy
Mayor Anthony Shorris said in a statement. The NYPD
doesn’t think the white flags were related to terrorism, but the
incident did expose glaring flaws in the city’s security theater
apparatus. The solution, obviously, is more security theater.

Yes, obviously.