BOSTON (WHDH) - Lawmakers on Capitol Hill held a Senate hearing Wednesday morning on how the Boston Marathon bombings changed terrorist prevention and response efforts.
The hearing was led by Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Chair of the Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight Subcommittee, and Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), the Subcommittee’s Ranking Member.
Titled “Lessons Learned: 10 Years Since the Boston Marathon Bombings,” the hearing featured comments from former Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, former Deputy FEMA Administrator and Chief of Boston Emergency Medical Services Rich Serino, and former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Kerry Sleeper – all of whom held these positions at the time of the 2013 bombings.
Davis said technology helped lead police to the bombers and technology has improved since then. However, he warned some cities are backing away from technology that could save lives,
“There are some jurisdictions in Massachusetts that, at the local level, have stopped police from using things like facial recognition technology or access to camera technology,” Davis said.
“I understand the concerns about privacy in those situations, but we must remember as a government that the police are the security team for the poor people in our cities,” he added. “It’s scary to think that a political body has eliminated the use of an effective tool to solve crime at the local level.”
Davis and other speakers also warned that COVID-19 has cut down on face-to-face meetings between officials that provided valuable collaborations before the bombings and since. They said Zoom meetings just won’t cut it these days and long run leaders need to go back to getting together in person to establish ties that will pay off when emergencies happen.
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