[s_q_b]

It's highly symbolic from a police perspective. We may see it as some kids who watched too many documentaries playing a harmless prank. But let me rephrase that to put that in the frame of mind of the investigators. "Unknown individuals infiltrated a heavily guarded and highly visible piece of crucial infrastructure undetected. Once present, they defaced the public property by removing two American flags, and replacing them with white flags, a typical signal of surrender. The suspects remain at large."

It's about the symbolism, not the act. If NYC, for all its counterterrorism efforts, can't catch these pranksters, it makes the public safety officials look impotent in the face of real threats.

[smutticus]

> it makes the public safety officials look impotent in the face of real threats.

They largely are. It's incredibly difficult to stop crimes before they're committed, and prior to any terrorist mania it was generally considered to be outside the scope of police work. Mainly because it requires a security apparatus, and authority, that is in direct conflict with an open democratic society.

[s_q_b]

Exactly. I'm saying pointing out government impotence was the purpose of the protest, the payload message it was meant to transmit. That should be clear from the symbolic choices of removing the flags, etc. So naturally the powers that be are responding with anger due to that message, mostly because the protestors didn't show just tell, they showed that message, through the government's inability to prevent or apprehend them.

This is the nerf-ball version of challenge to government authority, so instead of Tahrir you get a few kids changing a flag, and instead of a repressive government crackdown, you get increased police investigation. But the mechanisms are the same.

States, whether they be national or local governments, don't react well to open challenges to their authority, and they use every tool at their disposal to prosecute anyone that commits a crime that openly challenges the authority of the government.

[josho]

Your comment suggests that there is an expectation that police should have the ability to catch these guys. I find that ridiculous. Have you all really become that paranoid that a harmless prank needs to find justice because 'what if it was a terrorist'.

Listen folks, you can't stop terrorism. A determined attacker will just find an easier target. You can't guard everything all the time.

[deciplex]

>You can't guard everything all the time.

No, but you can put everyone under the constant threat of imprisonment for nebulous reasons, or no reason at all, and there is some glitch in human reasoning that conflates the two.

[megablast]

> Unknown individuals infiltrated a heavily guarded and highly visible piece of crucial infrastructure undetected.

100,000s of people do that every single day. It is a bridge. That is what bridges do. They carry largely unknown people across a highly visible structure.

I think you are blowing this out of proportion. Or maybe I shouldn't use the word blowing.

[s_q_b]

Not me. That quote is that of a hypothetical law enforcement officer's view. It doesn't represent my personal opinions. It's an attempt to place ourselves in their shoes to understand their thinking.