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Re: Let's All Call Edward Snowden A Hero Thread

Posted: 08 Feb 2014, 10:47am
by Flex
darter wrote:We are talking about the program that permits the NSA to learn when a phone call is made from a bomb-maker in Pakistan to a kid in Dayton, Ohio, right?
We're talking about a program that hasn't even been able to conjure up evidence that it's ever done this, ever:
We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation,” it said, and added, “We are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.
Full article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/wor ... e16475947/

Re: Let's All Call Edward Snowden A Hero Thread

Posted: 08 Feb 2014, 11:26am
by Dr. Medulla
To add to Jon's point about the terrorist groups knowing, or assuming, that they're being monitored, this has to be accepted as part of the govt's entire rationale. That is, terrorists have been built up as the most diabolical forces ever known—not even the Soviet Union provoked this kind of intrusion on civil liberties, so the terrorists must be worse—so we can't turn around and then think they're a bunch of bumblers who give away their plans so easily. So who is revealing stuff that is being monitored? Foreign governments and private citizens who don't necessarily assume that the US is monitoring them. The whole apparatus does nothing to stop terrorism but it sure does provide an excuse to gather information on other groups and people and to build up incremental precedent and normalization of that behaviour.

Re: Let's All Call Edward Snowden A Hero Thread

Posted: 09 Feb 2014, 11:53am
by Dr. Medulla