Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Flamingo or Ostrich?
The [1]AP reports:
A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department obtained
video surveillance tapes suggesting terrorists were targeting Las
Vegas casinos but authorities never alerted the public as they
discussed whether a warning might hurt tourism or increase the
casinos' legal liability, internal memos show.
The mayor of Las Vegas said Monday he was never told about the
tapes uncovered in Detroit and Spain in 2002, and had been assured
by the FBI there were no credible threats against his city. "If I
were told, I would certainly tell the public," Mayor Oscar Goodman
said.
But memos and e-mails between federal prosecutors, obtained by The
Associated Press, say Las Vegas authorities were alerted to some of
the footage by Aug. 30, 2002. Later, numerous local law enforcement
officials were invited by a senior FBI agent to view the footage,
but most spurned the invitation, the memos say.
One document quotes a federal prosecutor in Las Vegas as saying the
mayor was concerned about the "deleterious effect on the Las Vegas
tourism industry" if the Detroit evidence became public. Another
memo states the casinos didn't want to see the footage for fear it
would make them more likely to be held liable in civil court if an
attack occurred. . . .
I doubt that such deliberate ignorance could indeed diminish the
casinos' liability -- it might actually increase it (unless they
thought they could hide their refusal to see footage). On the other
hand, it's not clear whether the memo was reporting the casinos'
expressed motivations, or was just guessing at the motives:
"The information, unfortunately, was not taken as seriously as we
believed it to have been," Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard
Convertino told AP in an interview, recounting how only two local
police officers took up the FBI agent's offer to see the tape.
"The reason that he (the FBI agent) was given for the low turnout
was because of liability. That if they heard this information they
would have to act on it. It was extraordinarily unacceptable and
absolutely outrageous," Convertino said. . . .
It's certainly possible that the agent's source was just speculating,
and the real problem was that the casinos weren't adequately informed
about the tapes, or someone else along the line dropped the ball.
References
1. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040809/D84BVN8O2.html
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