Patriot Act author warns EU against dragnet response to terror
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Re: Patriot Act author warns EU against dragnet response to terror
#2The real problem is flagging 0.2% of the population is useless when 0.00001% of the population is terrorists. If everything works perfectly your people end up investigating 1,000 innocent people in a row which trains them that everything is a false positive.
The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened in large part because there was simply far to much noise from other people and not enough signal.
Re: Patriot Act author warns EU against dragnet response to terror
#3“Talking about it in practical terms, the answer is to target the people which you know are up to bad stuff rather than bringing in the 99.8 percent of the inhabitants there, including the vast majority of followers of Islam, who have no intention whatsoever of conducting a terrorist attack,”
Are there any other terms than 'practical'?
Better late than never I guess. What's funny is that this was not exactly new knowledge when the patriot act was drafted in the first place. All these idiotically named acts ('patriot act', 'freedom act') are named that way so that if you're against them it looks as if you're either not a patriot or against freedom.
Re: Patriot Act author warns EU against dragnet response to terror
#4After watching this country erode away 1st and 2nd amendment rights with "save the children" arguments, I'm surprised to see people surprised, when they see their 4th amendment rights eroded in the same ways they authorized their 1st and 2nd ones to infringed on.
Re: Patriot Act author warns EU against dragnet response to terror
#5The real problem is flagging 0.2% of the population is useless when 0.00001% of the population is terrorists. If everything works perfectly your people end up investigating 1,000 innocent people in a row which trains them that everything is a false positive. The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened in large part because there was simply far to much noise fro…
This is and instance of the sensitivity and specificity trade offs and it is fundamental. It would be interesting to see some estimated ROC curves for "terrorist" screening approaches...
Re: Patriot Act author warns EU against dragnet response to terror
#6The real problem is flagging 0.2% of the population is useless when 0.00001% of the population is terrorists. If everything works perfectly your people end up investigating 1,000 innocent people in a row which trains them that everything is a false positive. The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened in large part because there was simply far to much noise fro…
> The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened because there was simply far to much noise and not enough signal.
I've never read that this was a typical "noise":
"NBC News said the Russian intelligence agency FSB cabled the FBI about its concerns in March 2011, warning that Tsarnaev was known to have associated with militant Islamists."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-explosions-boston-cong...
Re: Patriot Act author warns EU against dragnet response to terror
#7The real problem is flagging 0.2% of the population is useless when 0.00001% of the population is terrorists. If everything works perfectly your people end up investigating 1,000 innocent people in a row which trains them that everything is a false positive. The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened in large part because there was simply far to much noise fro…
> The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened because there was simply far to much noise and not enough signal. I've never read that this was a typical "noise": "NBC News said the Russian intelligence agency FSB cabled the FBI about its concerns in March 2011, warning that Tsarnaev was known to have associated with militant Islamists." http://www.reuters.com/ar…
The gp isn't calling that noise, it's the thousands of other things that they track that don't lead to anything that are noise.
Re: Patriot Act author warns EU against dragnet response to terror
#8What a silly article.
>> A lead author of the U.S. Patriot Act has some advice for European officials as they wrestle with the balance between personal liberties and security in the wake of the Paris terror attacks
That implies that security is actually achieved through a reduction in liberties, which is obviously not the case.
For example, monitoring the shit out of the general population didn't seem to help prevent the recent spate of shootings in the US.
>> He notes that at the time, a broad range of lawmakers, from security hawks to civil libertarians, voted for the bill
What's a "security hawk"? In light of the developments in the past few years, wouldn't it be more accurate to call them "tyranny hawks"? That would sound kind of unpleasant though.
>> The USA Freedom Act was signed into law in June, and government’s authority for bulk data collection ended this week
But let's not mention that in reality, the legislation did nothing to curtail the surveillance. It's unconstitutional to begin with, so why would any other law be an impediment?
>> Among other things, the prime minister proposed allowing authorities to hold suspects for 72 hours without a warrant and tag extremist young people with electronic tethers. “We must always preserve the balance between safety, freedom and privacy of citizens,” he said.
Extremist young people, you say? Here's the UK government's helpful advisory on what that might entail: http://www.cscb-new.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/CSCB_Ra...
>> "Showing a mistrust of mainstream media reports and belief in conspiracy theories" [..] "Appearing angry about government policies, especially foreign policy."
So I guess if you're 'mistrustful' of the US government telling you the economy is doing fine, that makes you an "extremist" that should be "tagged with an electronic tether", whatever that might be.
You shouldn't question foreign policy either. For example, clearly the US has done a wonderful job of fighting ISIS, right? To suggest otherwise would be heresy! Don't complain about meddling in other countries' affairs either, or you might find yourself "tagged with an electronic tether"!
Everything in "The Free World" is just doubleplusgood all around.
Re: Patriot Act author warns EU against dragnet response to terror
#9In my mind, the erosion of privacy and freedom - some of the most vaunted principles of the West - is the ultimate triumph of terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. They can't beat us by strength of arms, so instead they're stunting our culture.
Re: Patriot Act author warns EU against dragnet response to terror
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The 9/11 hijackers and the Boston marathon bombers where both flagged yet the attacks still happened because there was simply far to much noise and not enough signal. I've never read that this was a typical "noise": "NBC News said the Russian intelligence agency FSB cabled the FBI about its concerns in March 2011, warning that Tsarnaev was known to have associated with militant Islamists." http://www.reuters.com/ar…
The gp isn't calling that noise, it's the thousands of other things that they track that don't lead to anything that are noise.
And my argument is that the Boston bomber warning from the Russian authorities doesn't appear like a typical "noise," at last for somebody just reading the news, like me.
I admit I don't know how many such warnings come from Russia, but I doubt it's really something overwhelming, especially compared to collecting every phone record of everybody, if you know more I'm surely interested.