Quoting CNN,

“We know it was a very serious incident, but we have a lot more work to do to be able to say what kind of motivation was behind this,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters Sunday. “Was it a political motivation? Was it a personal motivation? We do not know that yet.”

The initial focus of this blog was on the techniques of open source analysis. Perhaps it is unfortunate that readers seem more interested in the results I obtain when I apply them. But this is an opportunity to refer back to the original purpose.  When an authority makes a statement on an issue which has not been factually decided, the content is not simply based upon the probabilities. Because the content of the statement becomes a fact in and of itself, a prominent factor is the effect on public welfare.

When an official public statement has the status of fact, criteria for the statement have evolved that surpass such things as probabilities and common sense.  The most obvious example is a criminal conviction. The guilt or innocence of the individual becomes a fact that supersedes personal opinion. You have probably followed a case in which the defendant walked free, yet your personal opinion of guilt did not change.

A purely opposite example involves the decision of turning the steering wheel of a car to avoid an obstacle. It is purely fact-based, relative to your personal perceptions. To prove otherwise would involve a complicated investigation, with complicated reasoning. And it has been done.

At this early stage, the event presents an interesting conundrum to the would-be open source analyst. It involves a meta-analysis of the thinking of the authorities who present the facts, basically as they see them, with some consideration for minimal disruption of the normal fabric of life.

The caution of the authorities in association of the event with terrorism could be due to technical facts, derived from crime scene investigation, and the forensics of the devices, that can trump every argument. Examples of the possible:

• The devices are  missing parts that would enhance their lethality.
• The level of construction is significantly beneath that seen in previous devices, or missing elements advised in terror training materials.
• The signature of the explosives themselves indicate an origin not likely to be terrorist.

 Their caution could also be a consequence of the traditional tools of criminal investigation, which include the psychology of the criminal act, and profiling of the unknown perpetrator(s). An off-the-record statement has been made to the effect that the locations of the devices, which were not places of maximum public exposure,potential lethality, and landmark-value, runs counter to the terror hypothesis. These are weaker criteria.

Their caution could also be a consequence of the need of the investigators to prioritize limited resources. It is a natural tendency to explain operational procedures in the form of the official statements that have been made, even if not justified by the events.

All of this will eventually be supplanted by actual knowledge. In the meantime, it presents an interesting exercise for the open sourcer. In order to not short-circuit that, no opinion is offered. But don’t forget to include these factors in your deliberation:

• Coincidence in time.
• The at-least superficial resemblance to IEDs of the past, both related to terror, and the randomly personal.
• The very low success rate. Out of a total of five devices, two pressure cookers and three pipe bombs, only two devices exploded, with no lethality.
• The tentative similarity of the devices in NYC and Seaside Park.
• Well developed theories of profiling, of both plain criminals and terror, exist to guide and prioritize the investigation. These are useful tools, but not as inviolable as technical facts. What are the alternatives?

Consider…