Might one of their less familiar benefits be the foiling of kidnappings in Colombia?
Your father-in-law is telling you that story about foiling the pickpocket in Moscow — for the fifth time.
As the prisoner was running, the officer would shoot them. Then they would claim the prisoner was trying to escape and get three days off for foiling it.
Meanwhile, hardly a week has gone by without the government trumpeting some new arrest or the foiling of another bomb plot.
Even as French lawmakers prepared to vote on Mr. Sarkozy's proposal, the Pirate Bay was offering a new service aimed at foiling both that plan and other efforts to track down file sharers.
