A Back Door to Encryption Won't Stop Terrorists

You're focused on lots of hypotheticals whereas I'm talking about what they do. Currently, the NSA and FBI are looking at hundreds of millions of connections trying to find needles in stacks of needles. They admit, outside these political debates, that they're drowning in data. FBI's metadata investigations are producing jack and missing major attacks while targeted investigations following actual evidence are resulting in convictions. Speaking of perverse incentives, the current model is so ineffective and broken that they're actually creating terrorists to convict while claiming the arrests are due to successful, post-9/11 power. Even have a number on the incentive: $100,000 per terrorist created and arrested.

https://theintercept.com/2015/04/15/fbi-informant-stung-fbi/

So, I'm pushing for more than an arbitrary limit on number of investigations. I'm pushing for them to switch their focus back to pre-9/11 where they leave most of America alone, keep good red flags, and focus their investigators on those. The barriers to intelligence sharing have been knocked down and local LEO's are integrated so dots should be connected faster than ever. With this focus, the limit will be the number of cases they're working simultaneously rather than on the books in general. It can be a multiple of the number of agents they have. Because it's hard for me to imagine one investigator effectively working ten, time-critical cases simultaneously. That's just overstretched although exceptions can be made for elite, multitasking, savant investigators if and where they exist.

So, we start with non-hypothetical stuff: the current surveillance dragnet that treats a whole country as guilty and watches every communication/association is an utter failure, a waste of money, and imposes chilling effects on democracy. The alternative is the original model of presumption of innocence, trained investigators following leads, prioritizing for most serious, and following through with good policework. Interestingly, the alternative already exists and runs in parallel with the surveillance state. Most convictions come from the alternative method. So, I don't have to justify it so much as point out that one is field-proven, it harms fewer innocents, and its cheaper. Ditching the failed method for that one is a no-brainer.

Unless, it's about money for defense sector and power over dissidents/competition for the nation that wields it. In that case, they'd try to keep the surveillance tech while continuing to lie about its purpose of protecting citizens from stuff it can't catch. Like we're seeing. ;)

You're doing a lot of sophistry rather than addressing the points. Lots of side points and vague counters rather than any facts. So, let me help you focus your mind so it might product something of substance that's actionable.

The point of the discussion is U.S. government and a chunk of America wants to stop foreign terrorists from trying to blow us up. The foreigners doing that have exclusively done it due to interference, often violent and imperialistic, in the Middle East. So, many of us draw the logical connection that this was the cause of actual attacks against us rather than terrorism in general which we don't care about. So, to reduce number of attacks, we must stop doing what caused them and modify our strategy of dealing with the mess we're in to account for this. Otherwise, our actions over there, esp collateral murder (err damage) & weapons distribution, will likely just create the next wave of terrorists like Bush/Cheney Administration just did with ISIS.

That's my claims. Now, do you have any counter to those specific points or would you like to add to them? To be extra clear, given your sophistry, I've claimed the following:

1. The U.S. takes overt and covert action against Middle Eastern countries for financial and political reasons rather than for survival. So, it shouldn't have taken that action and should reconsider future behavior like that.

2. Disruptive U.S. actions in the Middle East creates opponents, including the organizations that attacked us. So, they should stop doing that and fewer terrorists that attack us would be created.

3. Previous handling of opponents equipped and trained likely long-term foes before abandoning them. They consistently ended up turning into problems: Taliban; Saddam; ISIS. The U.S. needs to stop doing that. Throw their best minds on fresh strategy before doing any major interventions and with much focus on long-term effects with regard to terrorism blowback.

> Just because something isn't necessary doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Your comment isn't necessary, and it isn't making a friend of me. Does this mean that it's your fault if I attack you? That you should have backed out and minded your own business?

Surely you can discern why disagreeing with someone on HackerNews is different from invading their country, seizing their resources, and killing their family members.

> So you say. But I can't distinguish that whether that statement is fact or ideology. So I don't believe you, and I shouldn't until you've got some convincing evidence that it's true. You can tell me a story. I don't want a story.

And you can distinguish fact from ideology when people say that the solution to terrorism is more of what we're already doing?

I can understand you discarding information because you don't believe it's reliable. What I don't understand is that in the absence of information you believe to be reliable, you've still decided to form an opinion and argue for it. If you don't have enough information, it's okay to admit you don't know.

> And I really don't see how people committing acts of terrorism are making good decisions that we should support by giving them what they want for doing so.

I really don't see anyone proposing that.

> We want to keep doing those things.

Speak for yourself. I'm an American citizen and I don't want to start economic wars, support violent dictators, create economic sanctions that harm the common people and not the national leaders they purport to, provide conditional and earmarked aid that is sometimes actually harmful, and a wide variety of other internationally sociopathic behaviors. I think most people would agree if they actually understood that that's what's happening. But most people think we're spreading peace and freedom and protecting human rights.

There will always be crazies, but crazies like Qutb would likely not have as many supporters if they didn't have a wide base of people with real reasons to dislike the US to draw from.