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COMMENT: In past programs, we have covered school shootings, one of the most high profile forms of mayhem in our benighted society. (We began our coverage with Miscellaneous Archive Show M 55–Part 1, Part 2.) With the growth of high-tech, they have now become technologically obsolete.
School terrorism may become increasingly popular as anonymous communication technologies and anonymous payment systems like Bitcoin continue to roll out. The psychological effect of having children terrorized in this manner should not be underestimated. It will drive people into the arms of fascism, as they cry out for “someone to do SOMETHING!”
Police in Northern Virginia and New Jersey are investigating bomb threats that were called in to dozens of schools Friday morning, threats that prompted evacuations and lockdowns.
Many of the schools received the threats via automated phone calls — known as robocalls — a method that has become increasingly common for school bomb threats nationwide and one that is difficult to track. A rash of robocalls led to evacuations and lockdowns of 13 schools in three states in January, none of which were found to be credible..
At least seven schools in Northern Virginia received bomb threats Friday morning, prompting some to evacuate and others to lock down. Falls Church City’s lone high school, George Mason High, was evacuated after it received what school officials described as an “automated bomb threat” by phone shortly before noon.
Fairfax County Police are investigating bomb threats that were called in to three public schools and one private school between 11:22 a.m. and noon, but authorities declined to say whether those threats were from robocalls. Police determined them not to be credible and Fairfax County Public Schools officials decided to continue class normally at the three high schools that received threats.
“Police are investigating and have determined the threats are not credible, and are intended only to disrupt school operations,” said Mary Shaw, a school system spokeswoman. “We do not believe any FCPS students are at risk and we are continuing with normal school operations at all of our schools for the remainder of the day.”
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Bomb threats also were called into schools in a dozen districts in New Jersey at around 11 a.m. Friday, disrupting school for thousands of students, according to a report in The Record.. The problem has become so severe that the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office has decided to host a symposium to discuss how to handle such threats. It was the second time in a week that robocall bomb threats shut down multiple schools in New Jersey.
Robocalls are becoming an increasingly common method of delivery for school bomb threats, said Amy Klinger, an assistant professor at Ashland University in Ohio and a co-founder of the Educator’s School Safety Network, a national non-profit school safety organization.
Klinger said that Internet-based organizations charged the equivalent of $50 in bitcoins to create a bomb scare using automated phone calls, which account for 13 percent of all threats, according to her school security research.
“Schools are really caught in this dilemma of what do we do? Do we ignore it? But you can’t,” Klinger said, noting that some schools receive multiple threats in a single day and evacuate their buildings for each occurrence, creating significant delays during the academic day. “That’s a really dangerous precedent to say we’re just going to stop responding. So it’s really kind of a Catch 22 that schools have found themselves in. We need to respond but every time we do it just generates more threats.”
Klinger, in a recent school security report, wrote that bomb threats against schools have increased significantly in recent years. So far during the 2015–2016 school year, Klinger found that a total of 745 bomb threats had been made against schools, a 143 percent increase compared to the same time period during the 2012–2013 school year.
In January, schools nationwide received 206 bomb threats, the highest number ever recorded, Klinger found. Her research also determined that threats were made indiscriminately, with 48 of the 50 states in the country recording school-based bomb threats.
“It’s not going away,” Klinger said. “The only option is to empower schools to be able to handle these things.”
“Klinger said that Internet-based organizations charged the equivalent of $50 in bitcoins to create a bomb scare using automated phone calls, which account for 13 percent of all threats, according to her school security research.“
At $50 a bomb threat, it’s almost kind of amazing that the trend isn’t growing even faster than it already is:
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Klinger, in a recent school security report, wrote that bomb threats against schools have increased significantly in recent years. So far during the 2015–2016 school year, Klinger found that a total of 745 bomb threats had been made against schools, a 143 percent increase compared to the same time period during the 2012–2013 school year.In January, schools nationwide received 206 bomb threats, the highest number ever recorded, Klinger found. Her research also determined that threats were made indiscriminately, with 48 of the 50 states in the country recording school-based bomb threats.
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The Simon Wiesenthal Central called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to created a task force to investigate bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers following a fourth wave of threats in 10 states on Monday:
“At least 11 JCCs in 10 states received threatening phone calls on Monday. It was the fourth series of such messages since the start of the new year, raising the total number of incidents to about 70 aimed at almost 60 JCCs in 27 states and one Canadian province.”
70 bomb threats aimed at Jewish Community centers this year alone certainly seems like the kind of situation that could justify a special Justice Department task force. But, of course, there’s the obvious question of whether or not Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration has any real interest in investigating crimes that are almost certainly perpetrated by Trump’s base. Although given that Trump claimed that acts of anti-Semitism were false flags done by his political opponents during his bizarre rant about how he was the least anti-Semitic and racist person you will ever see — a statement that probably filled the white supremacists doing it with glee and only encouraged them to do it more — it seems like he should want to see a successful investigation that discovers the culprits and, in turn, discovers they’ll all Trump opponents trying to gin up anti-Trump sentiments.
So we’ll see if there really is a significant task force assembled that actually unmasks the perpetrators. But it’s also going to be important to keep in mind that in our current technological environment, where robo-call-bomb-threat-for-hire services exist and create effectively unsolvable crimes, it’s entirely possible that the perpetrators of the current wave of bomb threats can’t be caught. Unless the perpetrators somehow screws up (which they clearly haven’t done so far):
“It’s difficult, but far from impossible, to identify an anonymous caller. Cell phones and internet-connected calls can make it harder to track a phone number, so good old fashioned police work is still your best bet, Burke said.”
Yep, it’s not impossible to identify an anonymous caller. Maybe they’ll leave enough clues that allow investigators to piece things together:
Or maybe they won’t:
So given the possibility that the individual(s) behind the current wave of threats aren’t going to suddenly make a mistake they haven’t made yet (they’ve gotten away with 70 threats so far without getting caught), we probably shouldn’t be surprised if this crime is never solved and not just due to the fact that the Attorney General appears to harbor white nationalist sympathies. Both politics and technology could be getting in the way of solving this, which also means we probably shouldn’t be surprised if it continues. Indefinitely.