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.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead
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.
"I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back in Whittier, they're not much bigger than two meters.'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft
"I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back in Whittier, they're not much bigger than two meters.'" - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft