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PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack

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Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack

#101

Post by macintux »

djsumdog wrote: post #45
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you subscribe to a definition of "terrorist attack" that includes "someone with political beliefs I don't like possessing a handgun in violation of the law" then sure, dozens per year thwarted sounds about right.

There is still a lot of unrest in Portland and Seattle, but Federal police (US Marshals, FBI, BORTAC, et. al.) have used regular old police work (cameras, under cover anarchists, wiretaps with warrants) to arrest a ton of these people when the city prosecutors simply wouldn't do a damn thing or catch and release them. Now many of these people are facing federal crimes. You can get some serious years for swinging a sl…

You’re not going to garner much sympathy for the McCloskeys. One vital rule of gun handling is to never point it at something until you’re ready to shoot, and she pointed it at people with her finger on the trigger.

Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack

#102

Post by tunap »

anm89 wrote: post #11
0goel0 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you base that on?

Bush and his crew had the Patriot act written before 9/11 and were simply waiting around for a circumstance to justify enacting it. Honestly I'm surprised this is even a controversial opinion at this point. This is exactly what Snowden exposed. That these programs were as if not more focused on internal spying than anything else.

By Bush & Crew you meant to say Joe Biden, right? Or, perhaps all those who enrich themselves by warmongering, despite party affiliation? If you were to parse the mass edits of JB & Patriot Acts wiki pages you would find that Joe's substantial contributions to the Patriot Act have been cleansed from said pages.

And yet the OCA page still exists. The scripted narrative of politicos can't completely whitewash all historical facts. Yet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Counterterrorism_Act...

Obama announcing his VP gave me pause back in '08. I voted for them anyway. After they retained/appointed W.Gates & T Geitner, I realized "Change" != change, apparently.

We now have two shit choices, IMO, and truly struggle to determine which is the least evil option through all the noise. Perhaps if we knew before casting our ballot who will be in each admins' cabinets making policy decisions we could make an more informed vote.

Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack

#103

Post by jaywalk »

gnu8 wrote: post #62
colinmhayes wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't have to take your shoes off anymore if you precheck.

So all someone has to do if they want to bomb an airplane with their shoes is cough up $80 for a Precheck pass. Very secure.

And pass a background check.

Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack

#104

Post by hash872 »

rhacker wrote: post #82

I want Snowden to be pardoned. And I think the data collection network was both illegal and morally wrong. But that doesn't make me believe these kinds of articles. Most of these types of articles for the past numerous years have the same formula. Case X proves it was useful, case X is determined to not be relevant to the data collection methods, typically by someone biased. And it's always a judge out of one of the…

I basically agree with your sentiment, but that's where politics (literally- persuading enough fellow citizens or legislators to your point of view) comes in. People think politics is this dirty, awful business, but it determines the legality or illegality of these kinds of programs. If you want to effectively advocate for change, you have to play the political system.

And, telling the general public that PRISM isn't effective has a decent shot at getting these practices outlawed. Telling the general public 'sure, a few terrorists will get through here and there, but that's the price of living in freedom' is pretty much guaranteed to get you the opposite result. You have to focus on effective persuasion, and regular people won't/can't think about hard tradeoffs

Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack

#106

Post by ShamelessC »

djsumdog wrote: post #45
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you subscribe to a definition of "terrorist attack" that includes "someone with political beliefs I don't like possessing a handgun in violation of the law" then sure, dozens per year thwarted sounds about right.

There is still a lot of unrest in Portland and Seattle, but Federal police (US Marshals, FBI, BORTAC, et. al.) have used regular old police work (cameras, under cover anarchists, wiretaps with warrants) to arrest a ton of these people when the city prosecutors simply wouldn't do a damn thing or catch and release them. Now many of these people are facing federal crimes. You can get some serious years for swinging a sl…

I don't have a response for you because you're probably dug in, but anyone reading this please consider that it's riddled with misinformation.

Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack

#107

Post by maerF0x0 »

dx87 wrote: post #53
Imnimo wrote: post #20

While I'm absolutely opposed to PRISM and similar programs, I think it's a little disingenuous to suggest that the only potential value was from stopping terrorist attacks. Look at this leaked powerpoint slide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism-week-in-life-straig... If you want to argue against PRISM-like programs, it would behoove you to tackle their actual purpose. We shouldn't just argue that PRISM isn't g…

That's a good point. While we don't know the details, it's entirely possible that it didn't stop any terrorist attacks because the intel gathered allowed the USA to remove the conditions that would have allowed an attack to be planned in the first place. Ideally, that's how it would happen, just like it's better for an organizations IT department to proactively prevent networking problems than trying to mitigate issu…

These are similar kinds of non-falsifiable claims that many authoritarian or the like use.

* The stock is down 25% this year with our $100M/yr CEO, but think of how bad it would have been without them

* We need tough on crime policies because unreported crimes are on the rise

* Tough on crime policies deterred all the decline in crimerate

* The king is good because we didnt get invaded since he sat on the throne

Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack

#108

Post by anm89 »

tunap wrote: post #102
anm89 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bush and his crew had the Patriot act written before 9/11 and were simply waiting around for a circumstance to justify enacting it. Honestly I'm surprised this is even a controversial opinion at this point. This is exactly what Snowden exposed. That these programs were as if not more focused on internal spying than anything else.

By Bush & Crew you meant to say Joe Biden, right? Or, perhaps all those who enrich themselves by warmongering, despite party affiliation? If you were to parse the mass edits of JB & Patriot Acts wiki pages you would find that Joe's substantial contributions to the Patriot Act have been cleansed from said pages. And yet the OCA page still exists. The scripted narrative of politicos can't completely whitewash all histo…

No by Bush and crew I meant Bush and crew and you know exactly who I mean.

2001 didn't center around 2020 partisan politics. This is not a defense or condemnation of Biden.

Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack

#109

Post by tomjakubowski »

djsumdog wrote: post #45
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you subscribe to a definition of "terrorist attack" that includes "someone with political beliefs I don't like possessing a handgun in violation of the law" then sure, dozens per year thwarted sounds about right.

There is still a lot of unrest in Portland and Seattle, but Federal police (US Marshals, FBI, BORTAC, et. al.) have used regular old police work (cameras, under cover anarchists, wiretaps with warrants) to arrest a ton of these people when the city prosecutors simply wouldn't do a damn thing or catch and release them. Now many of these people are facing federal crimes. You can get some serious years for swinging a sl…

Portland: Feds suffer 277 injuries but no lasting blindness.

https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/475908-384635-portland-fe...

Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack

#110

Post by textgel »

But we were told it would save lives and was for saving the world?

That means it's completely impossible for such things to be a lie doesn't it?

As long as you say something is for saving the world or doing good and accuse all others who might raise questions about it of being terrorists/communists/racists/nazis etc it simply has to be true doesn't it?

I mean as long as someone just says something is to save lives or for justice or to save the world you have to completely accept it without question don't you?

You don't question it at all right?

Or else that would make you pure black hearted evil wouldn't it?

To take something done in the name of good intentions and apply rational thought and reasoning to it in the interest of affirming whether or not it would actually do good for the world or others or to achieve its goals makes you the literally the equivalent of a rapist doesn't it?

I mean I just got done reading a recent hn article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24714880 that is completely unrelated in any way whatsoever at all to anything mentioned above and I am completely shell shocked, dumbfounded!

I mean how could this happen?

Seriously, we were told it was to save lives?

And it was said by people in official positions with credentials; which means it is literally physically impossible to be wrong in any way at all, we all know this is true!

God this is all too much to take, I really need a holiday. I really hope we have a complete coronovirus lockdown for as long as it takes to kill off this virus for good so we can get back to normal and I can have one.

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