History
According to the New York Times,
the term has an ugly history; in the 1960s American law enforcement officials began creating secret dossiers on Vietnam War protesters, civil rights leaders and other persons of interest. … The vaguely sinister term has been applied to targets of terrorism investigations, the chief suspect in the murder of the Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy and Steven J. Hatfill, the scientist who has figured prominently in the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. … Attorney General John Ashcroft is often credited with popularizing the person-of-interest label, having used it to describe Dr. Hatfill.It was used at least as early as the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing in reference to Richard A. Jewell. Its initial uses aroused controversy, but it has since seen increasingly regular use. Jewell later remarked on the use of the term:
Question: Do you believe that the public will formulate the same idea about that person's involvement in criminal activity upon hearing the term "person of interest"? Is this just a euphemism, just another way of saying "suspect"? Jewell: I'd say so. The public knows what's going on. Because of what happened to me, things have changed. It has definitely changed the way the media in Atlanta refer to people that are arrested or are suspects. And I've seen it on some of the national channels like Fox News, NBC and CNN. They've all changed. Go back before 1996, at a shooting or a murder and see how they refer to the person that they're arresting in the incident. Compare that with something that's recent and look at the difference. What happened to me is a factor in that change.Read more about this topic: Person Of Interest
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)