Who can forget the classic line uttered by Commodore Perry during the War of 1812's Battle of Lake Erie: "We have met the enemy and they are ours!" Perry, then age 28, kicked serious British naval butt in that decisive victory.
Nearly two centuries later, the famed comic strip creator Walt Kelly twisted that line for the benefit of his seminal character, the possum Pogo. On an Earth Day poster in 1971, Pogo, looking at a polluted stream proclaimed, "We have met the enemy and he is us!" The same line was also used in a cartoon to lampoon the Nixon Administration, so the creator's use was to point a critical finger at things government, in Kelly's opinion, was doing wrong.
You, dear Reader, are probably asking, Why are we going through this lesson?
Because of headlines like the ones found in many IT publications this week: Feds look to local law enforcement to help stop terrorists.
Gee, what a revelation! Let me tell you a story about what happened here in Florida that had direct bearing on 9/11, could have even stopped 9/11, and still is not taken as seriously as it should. 数据挖掘研究院
You see, Mohammed Atta was a terrible driver. He turned out, regrettably, to be a much more capable pilot than a motor vehicle operator. He was such a bad driver that he was stopped and issued citations for motor vehicle moving violations in Florida not once, but twice, in just a matter of weeks!
His first ticket was in Broward County, the home of Ft. Lauderdale and its suburbs. Atta was living in Coral Springs at the time, a nice bedroom community in Northwest Broward. He failed to appear in court for his hearing (Geez, I wonder why?), and a bench warrant was immediately issued for his arrest.
Fast-forward to a few weeks later. Atta is pulled over again for a moving violation, this time in southern Palm Beach County, about 15 driving minutes from his first citation.
Here's the rub, as the Bard would say: Broward County did not put its bench warrants into any kind of an information system that could be searched by other law enforcement agencies. Thus, the officer in Palm Beach County was unaware of Atta's bench warrant in next-door Broward. He is issued yet another citation and is sent on his way.
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