Ignore the Drumbeat of Doom, the NSA’s Call Records Program Didn’t Stop a Single Terrorist Att

[Suzanimal]

Ignore the Drumbeat of Doom, the NSA’s Call Records Program Didn’t Stop a Single Terrorist Attack


Do you hear that? It's starting.

The predictable drumbeat of dire warnings about what will happen if portions of the Patriot Act – the post-9/11 law being used to conduct controversial NSA dragnet surveillance – are allowed to expire on June 1 has already begun.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, issued what is likely to be the first of many vague warnings from the intelligence community on Monday. Faced with the expiration of the part of the Patriot Act that allows the bulk collection of information about Americans' phone calls, Clapper brought out the favored hypothetical of the surveillance hawk: An unspecified attack will occur, which would have been prevented if Congress had reauthorized the dragnet collection of Americans' phone calls.

"If that tool is taken away from us... and some untoward incident happens that could have been thwarted if we had had it," Clapper said, "I hope that everyone involved in that decision assumes the responsibility."

There's just one problem with this particular bit of emotional blackmail, however. The pesky, rather inconvenient fact is that the government's mass surveillance programs operating under Section 215 of the Patriot Act have never stopped an act of terrorism. That is not the opinion of the NSA's most ardent critics, but rather the findings of the president's own review board and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. This program has had over a decade to prove its value, and yet there is no evidence that it has helped identify a terrorism suspect or "made a concrete different in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation."

...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/ignore-drumbeat-doom-nsas-call-records-program-didnt-stop-single-terrorist-at

[donnay]

Of course it didn't, but it won't stop them from snooping on it's own citizens because they hate us for our freedom! :mad:

[Mr.NoSmile]

But if you have nothing to hide, what the NSA does shouldn't matter to you- is what people have and continue to say.
We need to prevent another 9/11 and I have a right to know whether my neighbor is a domestic terrorist- is what many people still say.
Do you pose a threat to national security? If not, then quit worrying!- is what people say.

I detest this sort of logic.

[Ronin Truth]

Well just give the NSA more potfulls of money, in order to stop the terrorists.

This kind of argument did wonders for the FBI and CIA budgets over decades.

[jmdrake]

It's interesting that nobody ever ask the question why did we never have a 9/11 attack before 9/11.

[DamianTV]

Of course it didn't, but it won't stop them from snooping on it's own citizens because they hate us for our freedom! :mad:

From a leadership viewpoint, the easiest way to take a country to take a country to war is to lie to them. Surveillance assists in understanding what lie will be the most effective one to tell.

From a financial viewpoint, the collection and sales of all this data and metadata is exceptionally profitable. We become the things that are for sale. What they consider to be nice is that the moneys that are exchanged for the sale of our private data doesnt ever get into our hands. If money came into our hands, they'd have to find a way to take it back out again. Not paying us for the collection and sale of our surveillance eliminates the middleman, where Google sells your data to the Govt, and the Govt gives Google power to collect even more data.

The intent of Surveillance is NOT to stop Terrorism. Terrorism is manufactured by simply LYING about it. The real intent is to control the People. It isnt so much the collection of data that one needs to be worried about, but what is done with that data that you should be frightened of. Now, lets give the Nazis the NSA Search Program known as XKeyscore and let them "search" for anyone that is Jewish. Very bad news for the Jews as they find themselves "disappeared". When does that turn into "search" for all "Ron Paul Supporters"? When do we find all the "Ron Paul Supporters" have mysteriously "disappeared"? Visa just made a statement about "Internet Ready Fridges". When does your "Internet Ready Fridge" comprimise your Credit Score? When does that "Health / Credit Score" determine if you can get a job or not? When will all that information be used to decide whether or not you qualify for a medical treatment? People continue to think that all this data will be observed by humans; it wont. It will be scanned over quickly and accurately by soul-less computer programs. Worst part is that not only will no one be allowed to know what information is collected, but be able to make any corrections to incorrect information. And it goes right back to Right and Wrong being Subjective Terms. How do you correct a computer program with incorrect information? How do you even influence the computers mathematical output of determining if you are Right or Wrong? What happens when the Default becomes Wrong? What has already happened when people are found Guilty until proven Innocent? What happens when you are Wrong by Default, and any humans involved in the determination of the Right / Wrong process become too lazy to draw these conclusions for themselves and rely on a computer to tell them if you are a "Bad Guy" the same way as people use Google to find Porn? What happens to our Food Production when the only profitable industries are created and subsidized to control the people?

Without Privacy, everything is subject to approval. And approval is a Permission that has replaced Rights, that is soon to be completely DENIED.

[muh_roads]

But if you have nothing to hide, what the NSA does shouldn't matter to you- is what people have and continue to say.
We need to prevent another 9/11 and I have a right to know whether my neighbor is a domestic terrorist- is what many people still say.
Do you pose a threat to national security? If not, then quit worrying!- is what people say.

I detest this sort of logic.

I do too.

If people don't exercise their 4th amendment rights, they will some day lose them.