You can't prove that would-be terrorists weren't dissuaded by the knowledge that PRISM existed.
What is the point of terrorizing a country that is already terrorizing its own citizens through unwarranted prying mass surveillance?
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
#52No one should be surprised by this. This program was simply another extension of the US's march towards authoritarianism. Much like the patriot act and our secret warrants, founded on a dubious premise that over the last 20 years have largely borne no fruit in terms of protecting our freedoms and safety but have instead eroded them. This is a system designed to protect the larger system from any civs who may be getti…
The "Patriot Act" is so maliciously named its more funny than sad. Reminds me of George Carlin's show about changing words to make them softer.[1] An good example he used to show this is the condition the fighters get from shock in combat. In WW1, it was called Shell Shock, a terrifying name. The same condition in WW1 was called Battle Fatigue, a nicer name. In the Korean War, the name changed to Operational Exhausti…
It comes to my mind the names of the ministries in 1984 (Ministry of Plenty, Ministry of Love).
Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack
#53While 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 issues that have already surfaced.
Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack
#54I'm very much against government (and corporate) spying, but as a mental gymnastic, why was this program a flop? Assuming it didn't stop one act of terror (as this article assumed/the judge ruled), why? We know that in the hands of corporations and political machines all of this data can be used with pinpoint accuracy. Is sussing out "who's likely going to commit an act of terror" categorically different than "who's…
In a word - Too much Data, not enough analysts to wade through it. The amount of ingested data from various fire-hose feeds was (is?) staggering.
The Signal to Noise ratio makes it practically impossible for any nation state to properly go through each and every 'flagged for human analysis' entry. Metadata analysis (who was in contact with who and when) are more than sufficient for prosecution and hoovering up the loose ends (after the fact). Parallel construction neatly masks some of the more interesting stuff.
I am Pro Privacy but still keep in touch with those that deal with this sort of stuff and the latest fad is "ML/AI will solve it for us". Good luck with that because - What do you use as a training data set?
Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "Patriot Act" is so maliciously named its more funny than sad. Reminds me of George Carlin's show about changing words to make them softer.[1] An good example he used to show this is the condition the fighters get from shock in combat. In WW1, it was called Shell Shock, a terrifying name. The same condition in WW1 was called Battle Fatigue, a nicer name. In the Korean War, the name changed to Operational Exhausti…
It comes to my mind the names of the ministries in 1984 (Ministry of Plenty, Ministry of Love).
The Department of War became the Department of Defense.
Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack
#56You'd think if it had stopped any attacks, the program's proponents would be shouting it from the rooftops. But no- nothing. Not even attempts to lie ("oh, we stopped several attacks, but we can't tell you anything about them...") PRISM is a phenomenal waste of trust and money.
They're not going to tell you about wins or loses, it would be silly to think otherwise. I'm not saying I agree with the program in any capacity, but those of us that have worked with government have a simple saying "loose lips sink ships".
The reality is that actual terrorism makes the papers, and real terrorists get tried and convicted. This is just mystery-mongering by people with nothing to do but defend a budget.
Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack
#57>The NSA phone surveillance program was illegal and expensive: And it did not stop a single terrorist attack "Was" illegal?
"X was Y" doesn't necessarily imply that X is no longer Y: for that, English has "X used to be Y" construct.
"is" would be so much more descriptive in this case that one could argue the usage of "was" may be intentionally confusing, as to induce the reader to imagine either the surveillance ended or became legal.
Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack
#58Why is there so little call for reform from congress and new administrations etc? Obama or Trump had no part in building the original system so why do they continue it? Is the political class as a whole 100% on board with authoritarian, privacy invading, controlling America?
I'm pretty sure Obama genuinely believed the NSA and drone strikes were good things for the country, something I disagree with thoroughly
Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack
#59I prevented one terrorist attack by myself. Nobody knows that, because attack was prevented.
I understand that it is impossible to prove a negative, but at the same time given the scope of the surveillance dragnet I'd hope they'd have something they could point to. At this point I would even circumstantial evidence as to the programs efficacy would go a long way, but it doesn't look like they even have that.
Its not proving a negative, its proving an existential query, there exists terror attacks that were stopped by PRISM. If the data was useful, then they could certainly point to the in-progress attacks that were thwarted - stopping an attack does not erase all information about its existence.
Re: PRISM – NSA surveillance program did not prevent a single terrorist attack
#60I prevented one terrorist attack by myself. Nobody knows that, because attack was prevented.
The "secretly prevented attack" thing is bunk because really prevented attacks, and the plotters of those attacks, end up in court and in prison.