The Unabomber Case Analysis

The Challenges Facing Combined Efforts To Prevent Terrorism:
The Unabomber
“How do you catch a twisted genius who aspires to be the perfect, anonymous killer—who builds untraceable bombs and delivers them to random targets, who leaves false clues to throw off authorities, who lives like a recluse in the mountains of Montana and tells no one of his secret crimes? That was the challenge facing the FBI and its investigative partners, who spent nearly two decades hunting down this ultimate lone wolf bomber (FBI, n.d., para. 1).” Terry Turnchie, the leader of the agency that headed the investigation of this terrorist attack, can attest to the things that went right, the things that went wrong, and to what could have been done, if possible, to prevent
Using a variety of reactive and preventive tactics, law enforcement seeks to stop terrorism before it occurs (Aziz, 2014). This was true with in the case of the Unabomber. These sporadic attacks went on for two decades, in which reactive and proactive measures were taken after an attack and to stop the next attack from happening. The task force would grow to more than 150 full-time investigators, analysts, and others. In search of clues, the team made every possible forensic examination of recovered bomb components and studied the lives of victims (FBI, n.d., para. 4), in effort to identify and thwart future attacks. Because there was not a real clue as to who or why these attacks were occurring, it was very difficult to create, put in place or plan how to stop these terrorist attacks from happening all together. The bombings would die down for months to years at a time, causing investigation efforts to follow suite and die down as well. By this point, the FBI and the Postal Inspection Service had defined the investigation. The FBI would handle devices that were placed at a location, while the Postal Inspection Service would investigate mailed
Through the years the only linking evidence to one person or group of persons was the marking “FC” that was left on recovered pieces from the bombs. Then on June 28, 1995, the New York Times and the Washington Post received copies of a 35,000-word manifesto which called for revolution against a corrupt industrial-technological society. The manifesto was forwarded to the FBI. The author agreed that, if one of the two newspapers would publish his manifesto, he would stop killing people. He also claimed he represented a group, known as "FC." This identified the author of the manifesto as the Unabomber. Now with a vital piece of evidence with possible identifying characteristics, the investigation would come to a point of processing to include consequences for actions once caught. Leading top-notch law enforcement on a seventeen year hunt of a case, that probably seemed like it would never, end would get its due justice. There must have been a number of angry investigators. Once found, would the person responsible for these horrible crimes get fair, due justice and would his civil rights be upheld? This was exactly the thoughts of the person that had sighted a link between the writing of the published manifesto, with letters he had received from his brother. When the Seattle Christmas tree bomber’s father solicited the assistance of the FBI because of his concerns about his son’s mental health problems, the