What should the NSA do to prevent terrorism or other attacks?

[BrentWil]

Simple question. Snowden exposed programs that used meta data to gather intelligence. The intelligence community said it was important to stopping attacks and civil libertarians said it was a problem with civil liberties. With that, here is a question. In an interconnected world in which people and communications move freely, what should the NSA and other intelligence assets be able to do?

[grasswire]

1. the intelligence community has not proven its assertions

So, respectfully, I think your question is flawed.

[BrentWil]

2. How do you prove something if the proof ensures that one will not be effective?

If there is no risk, should we simply take apart the NSA, CIA, etc?

[woo me with science]

3. What utter bullshit.

How about we stop the trashing of the Constitution, the transformation of the United States of America into a surveillance state aimed at its own citizens, and the subversion of our government agencies for corporate power and to prevent dissent?

[BrentWil]

4. What does that mean in practical terms?

What does the NSA do? Should there be an NSA?

[woo me with science]

5. Wow, amateurish *and* absurd.

Last edited Sat Feb 15, 2014, 07:39 PM - Edit history (2)

What a transparent and clumsy attempt at apologia for the NSA. I bet someone putting the talking point binders together must have thought this one was really clever. After all, it tries to kill two birds with one corporate-authoritarian stone.

Not only does it try to prevent discussion of NSA abuses by starting an absurd, diversionary discussion about whether intelligence agencies are even necessary at all....

...but in doing so it also insinuates that anyone protesting NSA egregious and unconstitutional abuses reflexively rejects the need for any government intelligence capabilities whatsoever.

That would be pretty slick propaganda in both the Smear and Diversion categories, if it weren't so ugly and transparent. It is both absurd and manipulative to *start* with the premise implied here: that it's impossible to have functional US intelligence without a surveillance machine aimed at US citizens and in collusion with corporate interests.


Anything to divert from the discussion we really need: exposure of the ABUSES of the NSA and serious action to rein them in. I won't be kicking this transparent NSA apologia again...but sometimes it's just important to call out the garbage explicitly.

[arely staircase]

29. yes you will

You won't be able to stop yourself.

[arely staircase]

26. don't expect anything but insults from that one there nt

[stevenleser]

20. Worse, if what the NSA is doing IS effective, exposing it will instantly make it not so. nt

[Distant Quasar]

6. Snowden's revelations far beyond metadata

In many ways, the metadata issue has become a smokescreen. It really is just a small part of the big picture.

Honestly, I think your question is too broad. It would be more useful to address more specific questions, based on what we now know about the NSA's activities.

For example, is it legitimate for the NSA to build secret back doors into the encryption standards on which the entire world depends, at the risk of undermining their integrity? I don't think so, but I'd be interested in hearing what the NSA's defenders have to say about it.

[randome]

8. Those are all rumors.

Other than the 'revelation' that monitoring bugs were placed in equipment for selected targets. As much data as can be collected, the entire world is not being monitored by one government agency.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same thing as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

[Distant Quasar]

12. Just rumors? Really?

The New York Times claims to have documentary evidence as well as interviews to back up this story:

[link:] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.html?pagewanted=all&gwh=A960D18560D7021157B80766C62FAFAD&gwt=pay

The Times could be wrong (and if you have specific reasons for thinking so, I'd be interested to hear them) but to me that counts as much more than a "rumor."

[randome]

13. Until evidence is printed, they remain rumors.

If they're true, I'll eat my...no, I won't. I'll simply accept any compelling evidence there is.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[Distant Quasar]

14. Fine, have it your way

The question remains, if the NSA is doing this, is it justified?

[randome]

19. It depends. I don't mean to be ambivalent about it.

I'm okay with the metadata copies because they have strict processes in place to prevent abuse. Carl Bernstein agreed with that.

If there are, indeed, back doors into encryption software, I would like to see what their justification is -and how abuses are prevented- before I take a stand.

But with all the non-governmental geniuses in the world, I have a hard time accepting that government bureaucrats can do anything that other, greater intellects, can't detect.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you don't give yourself the same benefit of a doubt you'd give anyone else, you're cheating someone.[/center][/font][hr]

[stevenleser]

33. Consider what would happen if NSA and FBI did not have back doors. Any criminal syndicate org...

organization could simply use the best encryption software out there and secure all of their communications and documents from being used against them in court. Want to traffic in illegal weapons? Great, just do all of your communications and paperwork using this proposed encryption to which no organization has the ability to crack or use a back door.

Yeah. That's a GREAT idea. not.

[rhett o rick]

65. I am not willing to give up my freedoms and liberties for a PROMISE of security. You

dont know that the massive spying is helping, but you believe your authoritarian leaders. Democracy requires vigilance and skepticism and not blind allegiance.

Those that place loyalty above principles, have no principles.

[Distant Quasar]

37. The problem is this

We can't ever know what their justification is - if it's true that they are doing this - or what steps they are taking to prevent abuses. They won't ever even admit they are doing it. So, stalemate.

Your last point is exactly what bothers me: if they are purposely building weaknesses into the encryption, it stands to reason that criminals or other malefactors will eventually find and exploit them. That seems to go directly against the NSA's own mission to protect cybersecurity. But again... I'm not an expert, just a concerned citizen.

[randome]

42. I'm not at all trying to be in favor of 'back doors'. I don't think they exist.

But if they did, wouldn't it be a great way to catch child pornographers, human traffickers, bootleg organ smugglers, etc?

I mean, like StevenLeser points out, if the web can be made to be 100% secure, it makes it very easy for criminal organizations to do anything they want without fear of reprisal.

Just something to think about. (I think.)
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]

[Distant Quasar]

46. Well, there's that. On the other hand...

If the cost of catching a few more child pornographers were a massive new vulnerability for cybercriminals to exploit, that seems like a good example of shooting yourself in the foot.

Beyond that, justifying NSA powers on law enforcement grounds doesn't sit well with me. That seems like exactly the wrong way to go if we want to keep intelligence agencies within reasonable bounds.

Anyway, yes, food for thought.

[JDPriestly]

50. Wouldn't it be great if the DEA and other government agencies and their attornies

complied with the Constitution's requirement that a defendant be able to be confronted by his/her accuser.

The problem with the DEA's sneaky, secret acquisition of evidence is that the defendant is not told that the actual accuser is evidence that the DEA obtained through surveillance of the defendant's or perhaps the defendant's believed associates' communications.

That's the problem with this.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, . . . and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/sixth_amendment

The prosecution lawyers is making a misrepresentation to the court if he or she does not advise the court and the defendant of the true source of the witness against the defendant. That is a violation of attorney ethics. Believe it or not, just about the first and most basic rule is that you do not make misrepresentations to the judge, to the court.

Maintaining The Integrity Of The Profession
Rule 8.4 Misconduct

It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

(a) violate or attempt to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another;

(b) commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects;

(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;

http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_8_4_misconduct.html

So that is why what the DEA is secretly doing is very wrong.

Besides, considering the size of the DEA's budget, they should be able to catch the drug dealers and gangs without cheating with regard to the evidence.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

69. Back doors have been around since, like, 1983.

[JDPriestly]

81. But criminal organizations are stealing credit cards and identities, etc. on line in spite of the

NSA spying. How do you think they got into the Target and other companies' credit card information? The NSA could care less about securing the web. That is not what they do. If they did, people might be more supportive. But the NSA is not protecting us from hackers who want our financial and other information. I think that our government has pretty good ways to find child pornographers, human traffickers, bootleg organ smugglers, etc. It's called getting a warrant if you have probable cause. It's fairly easy to do. It leaves a paper trail so that abuses are minimalised. But, frankly, it appears that the NSA is so busy doing nosy snooping on innocent people that they don't have the time to use legal means to catch the real crooks

[stevenleser]

101. And people murder despite it being illegal and police patrols and walking the beat. If your metric

for success is preventing a crime from occurring 100% or even a large majority of the time, the result is almost always going to be failure. We could hire half the adult population to be police and it still wouldnt prevent all murders or all crime.

That is not a legitimate criticism.

[JDPriestly]

79. How in the world would Carl Bernstein really know what the NSA is or is not doing?

[stevenleser]

103. Why is this new? Did you know what all covert organizations were doing before June of this year?

In general, we know what the NSA is doing. It's called SIGINT.

[JDPriestly]

104. No. I never thought about the NSA other than to know that Condoleeza Rice was there.

Most Americans are like me. What is more, while I know the Constitution and have read a lot of Supreme Court decisions, I have no real understanding about what SIGINT is.

Could you explain please?

My question was how would Carl Bernstein know so much about the NSA's practices if they are secret. Any ideas.

[stevenleser]

105. Condoleeza Rice was not there. The NSA is not the same as the President's National Security Advisor.

NSA: the Intelligence Agency is the National Security Agency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA

NSA: Usually called the National Security Advisor, while the position's real name is the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Advisor_(United_States) ) is the position that was held by Condoleeza Rice.

SIGINT, or signals intelligence is a huge topic. Below are some good links to get you started. When you join any branch of the military, you get a brief course on the different kinds of intelligence and how to avoid inadvertently giving intelligence away and included in that was a description of SIGINT. Every branch of the US military has an intelligence organization (Army intelligence, Naval Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence) and they all also are involved in SIGINT. Most first world countries have intelligence organizations that spend a good deal of time and effort on SIGINT, including Canada as detailed in the third link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGINT

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/sigint/overview.htm

http://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/home-accueil/what-que/sigint-eng.html

http://www.nsa.gov/sigint/

[randome]

7. Jesus H. Christ. A rational question on the subject. On DU, of all places!

Personally, I would rather the NSA focus on making recommendations as to diplomacy and international relations. The U.S. could withdraw from its status as international police and put more emphasis on U.N. intervention. We have far too much border territory to monitor, anyways.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[stevenleser]

9. You won't get any coherent answers. Folks will assert that we should just do nothing and terrorism

will not occur. Or that its just too bad that Americans will die and we wont have done everything we can to stop it.

[Distant Quasar]

17. So, arguing for constraints on the NSA = saying we should do nothing about terrorism?

I hope that's not what you actually believe.

[stevenleser]

18. Did you respond with suggestions to the OP? No.

That undercuts the argument you seem to be making here.

[Distant Quasar]

27. I did, actually

I suggested that the question is too broad (for here, anyway - it's a dissertation topic) and that it would be more useful to break it into more specific questions that Snowden's disclosures have raised. And I gave a specific question that I think is under-discussed and important. You may not like that suggestion, but there it is.

In any case, I don't know what "argument" you're talking about. I asked you a question in an attempt to clarify what you said in your original comment.

[stevenleser]

30. That's not suggestions, it's excuses why you think you can't provide any suggestions. nt

[Distant Quasar]

43. What a response

First, I see you responded to my question about the NSA's anti-encryption strategy. So apparently breaking a big, vague question into smaller, more manageable ones is not so bad an idea after all.

You didn't offer any suggestions to the OP at all, just groused about how there wouldn't be any productive discussion. That seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me.

And you still haven't answered my original question. Oh well.

[Armstead]

80. Don't hold your breath

[JDPriestly]

53. Here is my suggestion:

The FISA court should be dissolved.

1) The NSA should have to go to the court that is the luck of the draw to get its orders. If they took the luck of the draw on the judge that approves their orders, they would check themselves and not overplay their hand.

2) Everything the NSA does should be subject to review by a commission made up of people drawn from various groups including lawyers from the criminal defense bar, members of the American Bar Association, representatives of internet companies, ordinary citizens, local police officers, non-profit organizations, wide variety of representatives from non-military, non-intelligence communities.

[treestar]

94. +1

While reserving the right to criticize the government for not having stopped any attack that occurs.

Add a dose of "well, it didn't stop the Boston Marathon Bomber," and therefore, there should be no attempts whatsoever.

[LuvNewcastle]

10. Watch the police.

[jsr]

51. Bingo.

[Logical]

11. 9/11 could not happen again. Would not work again. What terror attack are you worried about? n-t

[Douglas Carpenter]

15. actually it is my prayers that have prevented any major domestic terrorist attacks and there is

not a single person here or anywhere else who can prove otherwise. So, don't piss me off or I will stop praying.

But in regards to the NSA --- thanks to kpete for posting this:

Conclusive Evidence: The NSA's expanded powers NEVER protected us from any terror plots.

The War on Terror's Jedi Mind Trick
National-security officials insist new violations of privacy are essential for keeping Americans safe from terror—but there's no evidence the programs have stopped any attacks.

JULIAN SANCHEZDEC 23 2013, 4:49 PM ET

A Republican-appointed judge and President Obama’s own handpicked Surveillance Review Group both came to the same conclusion last week: The National Security Agency’s controversial phone-records program has been of little real value to American security. Yet its defenders continue to insist that it is necessary, clinging desperately to long-debunked claims about foiled terror plots. Their stubbornness fits a decade-long pattern of fear trumping evidence whenever the word “terrorism” is uttered—a pattern it is time to finally break.

Since the disclosure of the NSA’s massive domestic phone-records database, authorized under a tortured reading of the Patriot Act’s Section 215 authority to obtain business records, intelligence officials and their allies in Congress have claimed it plays a vital role in protecting Americans from “dozens” of terror attacks. But as the expert panel Obama appointed to review the classified facts concluded, in a report released Wednesday, that just isn’t true.

“Our review suggests that the information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of section 215 telephony meta-data was not essential to preventing attacks,” the report found, “and could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional section 215 orders.”

In other words, instead of vacuuming up sensitive information about the call patterns of millions of innocent people, the government could have followed the traditional approach of getting orders for specific suspicious numbers. As for those “dozens” of attacks, the review groups found that the NSA program “generated relevant information in only a small number of cases, and there has been no instance in which NSA could say with confidence that the outcome would have been different without the section 215 telephony meta-data program.”
............................

MORE:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/the-war-on-terrors-jedi-mind-trick/282620/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024224530

[LuvNewcastle]

16. Thanks for stopping terrorism, Douglas.

I think you ought to be taxpayer-funded. Might as well.

[Marr]

22. +1

[Ed Suspicious]

57. You did a great job with all the praying and stuff. :) Keep up the good work.

[Iggo]

70. YES!!!

[riderinthestorm]

21. Alexander's admitted the NSA hasn't stopped any terrorist attacks.

So right from the start your question is based on a false premise.

What has been demonstrably proven is that it serves as a tool for economic imperialism for the elite. Perhaps if we weren't greedy gits we wouldn't be such a target. Or if we stopped droning people. Or stop wars of aggression in order to exploit and grab that country's natural resources.

There's a hundred different and more effective ways to stop terrorism against Americans - none of them involve the NSA.

In fact, I'd stipulate that closing it would make us all safer, instead of alienating everyone around the planet with its rampaging invasion of everyone's privacy.

[randome]

24. It was only a few months ago that India thanked the NSA for providing them with information...

...that prevented a terrorist attack. Can't find the link but...it was on DU so it must be TRUE!
[hr][font color="blue"][center]If you don't give yourself the same benefit of a doubt you'd give anyone else, you're cheating someone.[/center][/font][hr]

[riderinthestorm]

28. Uh huh. I'd really like to see a link to that assertion.

Until you provide that link, the NSA's track record still stands at ZERO.

However, even if you do provide the link, that means we've spent billions of dollars (probably in the trillions but whose counting), to warn India of one potential attack.

[randome]

41. Well, Diane Feinstein said it so you may not believe it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/09/dianne-feinstein-nsa_n_3412026.html

But the committee chairman, Democratic Dianne Feinstein of California, contends the program helped disrupt a 2009 plot to bomb New York City's subways and played a role in the case against an American who scouted targets in Mumbai, India, before a deadly terrorist attack there in 2008.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Reach out and touch someone today.
Kick a Republican in the nuts.[/center][/font][hr]

[riderinthestorm]

45. The Mumbai attacks happened. The NSA didn't stop that

I have no idea about the veracity of Diane Feinstein's claim about a 2009 NYC subway attack but she's probably one of the worst examples to use as an independent arbiter of NSA effectiveness.

But lets just assume she's being truthful for a change. That means we've spent billions of dollars and generated global animosity (and trampled all over the Constitution), and we might have stopped ONE attack.

Maybe ONE.

I am NOT ok with that.

The NSA gas done far greater damage than help. Severely restrict it or better yet shut it down. Its sole.purpose seems to be to help our plutocrats.

[JDPriestly]

82. So let India do its own surveillance in its own country.

After all, India has so many computer geniuses that we give them H1-B visas to come here and tell our computer industry what to do. Isn't that right?

[arely staircase]

23. it is a very good question but it probably won't lead to a very good discussion nt

[TheMathieu]

25. Excellent question. If one opposes something, the onus is on them to tell us how they'd do it.

And "nothing" is not a valid opposition.

[stevenleser]

31. My bet is on not one single serious suggestion. nt

[cali]

34. greater congressional oversight- start with Peter Welch's demand

for overall numbers for the "black budget" to be made public.

that's pretty concrete isn't it?

[stevenleser]

35. The OP's question is what the NSA should do to prevent terrorism. No, that's not a suggestion. nt

[riderinthestorm]

36. I provided at least 3 in my post. I'll even add another just for fun

(not that anyone's paying attention)

1. Stop spying on allies over trade talks, economic summits etc. We're alienating people who would work with us. We could dial back our spying and actually GAIN an advantage.

2. Stop droning people (yes the NSA is implicated in this by using the metadata and the person's cell phone).

3. Stop wars of aggression in order to exploit and grab that country's natural resources (yes, the NSA is involved here too).

4. Make meaningful reforms to the NSA (and I'd go further and also say the CIA) to restore trust and bring it more in line with the Constitution.

[stevenleser]

38. Nope, those are not suggestions for what the NSA should do to help fight terrorism. nt

[riderinthestorm]

40. Again, the NSA isn't fighting terrorism. That's demonstrably false

In fact they're creating more global terrorism.

I've laid out what they're doing. Stopping the NSA from continuing would actually do far more to fight terrorism than anything else you could suggest to create MORE NSA power.

[stevenleser]

54. The OPs question is what it is, not what you wish it to be. You don't have an answer

It's OK to admit it.

[riderinthestorm]

66. You just don't like my answer which is that the NSA and CIA shouldn't be able to do anything

They should be dismantled because they have been demonstrably proven they aren't intelligence agencies.

The entire premise of the OP is flawed.

You and the OP and other "randome" persons refuse to accept that basic truth and somehow want to continually re-frame the discussion.

Actually I'm appreciative of the OP's question because it exposes how brainwashed some of you are to even pose such a question.

Let alone demand an answer that has to suit your beliefs.

[stevenleser]

74. That is a non-answer to the question of the OP. nt

[LuvNewcastle]

39. Mine was serious.

The vast majority of the terrorism I see happening in this country seems to be domestic terrorism, and much of that is being perpetrated by the police against private citizens. They desperately need to be watched. I'm sure federal officers bear watching as well -- DEA, ATF, FBI, take your pick. Perhaps the NSA should become an internal oversight surveillance organization. I suspect the country would get a lot more benefit from that.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

72. But your opinions and guesses re NSA have been discredited time and again

Getting the evidence hidden by a jury doesn't change that fact.

But to answer your question, NSA should go after terrorism with signals intelligence. Should their investigations lead them to believe that they need to listen to something within the US, they should be made to get a specific warrant to go after metadata, phone tapping, data typing, and so on. You act as though this is a tough concept with no easy answers, but that's a pretty easy answer. Not being a bunch of Orwellian fucks really is an attainable goal, you know.

As to international spying, don't fuck your friends over. See how easy that is, Steve? Try not to assume others on this site have the same debilitating and limited worldview that you possess. There really are solutions available to us.

[stevenleser]

73. Nope, I've been right every time. I've always had the links and proof to back every assertion up. nt

[Aerows]

98. It kind of stuns me

when people think they are right all of the time. I have a fairly healthy ego, but I'm wrong at times.

[stevenleser]

106. I don't.

I absolutely don't think I am right all of the time. But I have been right on THIS ISSUE from the beginning because I actually did the research and I knew something about the topic of intelligence long before Snowden came along.

[treestar]

95. Same here

only deflections : they didn't stop one attack, the Boston Marathon, and so there need be no need to attempt it at all, that there aren't any attacks possible, or that the US has done bad things (and therefore deserves to be attacked, but that is not particularly stated, yet is the only conclusion).

[Douglas Carpenter]

47. EXACTLY!! - It is the people who are accountable to authority. NOT authority that is accountable

to the people!! This whole arrogant idea that secret government agencies have the onus to justify their actions is reprehensible. Is this what our fathers and forefathers fought and died for!!?

[TheKentuckian]

62. Bullshit, you have some responsibility to demonstrate the premise before asserting that nothing is

not only a valid response but the most reasonable one. If "nothing" is the default status then why is the critic required to invent a new application before stopping the current one.

You are in no logical position to demand anything, in fact your demands are inherently dishonest. You refuse to accept any answer that does not support your own assertion that you cannot, will not back up, and have no inclination to back up if you could.

No, I do not have to re- purpose an agency to want it eliminated, especially one who doesn't perform as argued.

Lots of snooping on Americans, plenty of industrial espionage assumable on behalf of those unwilling to pay taxes or act as if the people of this country are anything but an exploitable resource, doing the CIA's job of spooking foreign leaders, and seemingly zero or damn near zero terrorist plots stopped.

You and Steve are doing a frame job to restrict the conversation to one you can manage and attempt to argue without getting into the weeds with values, fundamental law, effectiveness, and real world application where your beyond weak premise is accepted without debate before any further dialog can happen.

Fuck that, you have "some 'splaining to do, Lucy" before your terms are accepted.

[sendero]

32. With all the surveillance they have right now..

... PLUS a warning TWICE from a foreign government about the Boston Marathon bomber, they didn't see it coming.

There was practically a newspaper headline about 911 coming, but nobody could "connect the dots".

They aren't remotely interested in stopping terror attacks, so the basic tenet of your question is wrong. And if they were, they are too busy listening to anything but terrorists to do anything.

[Maedhros]

44. The very nature of the NSA's program precludes it being useful in stopping "terrorism."

The more indiscriminate meta-data that is gathered, the higher the incidence of false-positive hits, to the point that finding "terrorism" is like finding a needle in a haystack. Human operatives will be spending all their time ruling out the false positives, leaving little time or resources for actually finding "terrorists."

The NSA needs to focus its attention on those individuals suspected of involvement with "terrorism" as a result of human intelligence. The NSA data should be used to support investigations, not to initiate them.

[stevenleser]

55. OP didn't ask how to make the NSA's 'program' fight terrorism. He asked what the NSA could do to

fight terrorism.

[reusrename]

85. The needle in the haystack works a little differently with computers.

They have plenty of processing power to assess the actual relationship between each straw and every other individual straw. The needle becomes obvious because it does not have the same exact relationship with all the other straws as the other straws do.

Computers are good at this. They just need the right algorithms. For some insight on what algorithms they use, just put the following search terms into the google:

thesis social network insurgent

thesis social network insurgent naval

These social networks are mapped using only the metadata.

[Maedhros]

99. I'll defer to the actual record:

The NSA surveillance program has not prevented a single terrorist attack. That would seem to support my claim that it is not well suited to do so.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

48. where do you live?

[Adam051188]

49. just a question here.

How did two kids from Chechnya who the Government was repeatedly warned about by foreign authorities manage to pull off an attack that injured 200+? I think the program is either a failure or is staffed by mentally deficient personnel. Just my opinion.

[MannyGoldstein]

52. Whatever is permitted by the Constitution

and the laws that truly derive from it.

[treestar]

96. according to the courts' interpretation of these laws

as allowed for in the Constitution.

[Ed Suspicious]

56. It should go away. I'll take my chances with the terrorism. Seriously. I have so little fear of

terrorism. Far from terrified.

[2pooped2pop]

58. y read my texts to my grandkids of course

U never know what diabolical things we may be planning. Take that Chuck E Cheese!

[PowerToThePeople]

59. Get a Fucking warrant. eom

[DanTex]

60. This is a good question, and it's too bad nobody will even try and answer.

My answer is, I don't know. But I do think we need something like the NSA, even if it isn't called the "NSA", because terrorism is still a threat. Since I live in NYC, I am at higher risk than the average American. In fact, at one point I did a back-of the envelope calculation, and I think that more New Yorkers died in 9-11 than have died in car accidents since 9-11 (that might not be true anymore now that more time has passed).

If we do what some people seem to want to do, which is just abolish the NSA and get rid of all government covert intelligence gathering, then we are going to end up getting hit again. There are people out there who would like to drop a dirty bomb in a major American city. There has to be a balance between civil liberties and safety, and I'm certainly opposed to things like torture. But let's not pretend there is no terrorist threat at all.

[randome]

61. I agree that New Yorkers and those in other high profile cities should have more input on this.

And for those who say 'take our chances', I say no one will take chances with the lives of my daughters.

There will always be a need for surveillance of some sort. That has not changed since this country began.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)[/center][/font][hr]

[TransitJohn]

63. Gather intelligence on terrorist networks, and quick fucking with Americans.

That should be a good start. I can't roll my eyes expressively enough at your question.

[Savannahmann]

64. Well since they've done nothing yet

Perhaps this thread is a good idea. First, we must consider the facts, and those facts are that the NSA has prevented not one terrorist attack. That is according to the defenders of the programs, in their reports to Congress and the American People.

What have they done? They have made a mockery of Congressional Oversight, turned attorney client privelege into a running joke. Violated every basic tenent of American Juris Prudence that we believed in. They have succeded in making this nation look like a charictiture of a petty dictatorship from Eastern Europe of the last century.

But they haven't prevented one terrorist attack.

In fact, they have utterly missed several attempted attacks, and some successful attacks.

For the cost of untold trillions of dollars we are no safer than if our national intelligence was the Horoscope of the day with confirmation via a Magic 8 ball.

http://www.indra.com/8ball/front.html

The information would be no more accurate than that which we are gettting now regarding terrorist threats. It would be a lot cheaper for the taxpayer however, not to mention less intrusive.

Is that the kind of thing you were looking for? Because to me, the first thing our intelligence assets should be able to do, is collect unemployment.

[Tikki]

67. Apparently nothing…after the fact, we can contact the whistle-blowers for their learned insight...

Tikki

[stevenleser]

68. This is the most telling OP on the NSA in 8 years.

It exposed those who claim the NSA is a bad organization as folks completely devoid of ideas and common sense.

[JDPriestly]

84. Actually, a number of people have suggested as have I that the NSA focus its energy on

identifying terrorists by studying the profiles of terrorists. First, they are probably within a certain age range and probably have close relationships with older fanatics of one sort or the other. They are likely to believe very strongly in, for example, a religion and to socialize with like-minded people. Foreign students are potential terrorists as are recent immigrants. That doesn't mean they should be profiled. The profile has to be based on research on terrorists who have planned violent acts or performed them.

So far I haven't heard of a grandmother or grandfather who was a terrorist. So they can be crossed off the list as can be children under 12 in the US. People who belong to moderate religions, parents of young or school age children, executives of corporations, most teachers, most doctors and nurses (unless they have other lifestyle behaviors like friendships with other terrorists, hanging out in places in which terrorists meet, etc.) are not likely to be terrorists.

Then the NSA should get warrants under the 4th Amendment and place those select individuals under surveillance. They should not pay any attention to other people. They should really focus on understanding the motivations of terrorists and leave the rest of us and our electronic communications alone. Focus on terrorism is the key.

[Egalitarian Thug]

88. Sorry, that doesn't fit this sponsorship seeker's narrative. n/t

[stevenleser]

89. That would be a good suggestion for the CIA and FBI. In fact, those orgs do those things.

For the NSA, part of whose charter is to look for folks heretofore unknown to be terrorists by analyzing communications, that suggestion would render them redundant to what the CIA and FBI already do.

[riderinthestorm]

90. You keep glossing over the FACT that the NSA isn't apparently looking for terrorists

and has failed spectacularly at it, if it ever was.

Your (and many others here) presumption that the NSA is actually doing counter-terrorism work is where you go off the rails.

Alexander's already admitted it.

[stevenleser]

91. Fact, eh? You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

That is not a fact, it is your opinion. And a poor one at that.

[riderinthestorm]

97. Alexander and DiFi have both admitted that the NSA has stopped MAYBE one attack. In 2009

Snowden's documents however have exposed NSA spying on countless economic summits, trade deals, wiretapping of the EU trade commissioner etc

Its a FACT that the NSA is being used for economic imperialism and certainly not (by the admission of both Alexander and Diane Feinstein) to stop terrorism. We the taxpayers have spent BILLIONS to keep the NSA going (probably well into the trillions but whose counting) to do what exactly? Clearly the NSA is designed to enable our elites to monitor global economic and political shifts for self-enrichment.

Exactly how else do you interpret that information as other than a "fact"?

[JDPriestly]

100. If they would be redundant if they focused on the real problem rather than wasting money, energy

and time on a lot of useless, extraneous stuff, maybe we don't really need the NSA. I suspect that we don't. What we need is people who study terrorism and maybe while they are at it violence that is aimed at strangers in general, identify individuals who are susceptible to doing it, personality types maybe, specific backgrounds, life stories, events, cultural pressures, etc. and then work to eliminate the triggers, the social and personal triggers for terrorism and other similar violence.

One thing I disagree with is the concept that terrorism is some special kind of crime. That a motivation is political (and I understand that to be the distinguishing factor in defining a person or act as terrorist or terror) does not make a crime more heinous than when the motivation is just shooting school children. The essential problem is the depravity in the act of wanting to cause enormous suffering to many, many people.

Whether the act is justified by some political or religious "belief" or by a personal desire that is rather irrational, why do people even conceive of mass killings? Are they copying others? What is going on inside them?

Bin Laden had a lot of money. In my view, he also had a messianic complex. Why did he choose to spend his money (which he could have used for things that were less destructive like building schools, hospitals and religious institutions or industrial facilities to lift the depressed economy where he lived) on training terrorists? And why did young men in the strength of their youth choose to kill people and be killed? That is what we need to know, not whether this one calls that one. We need to get to the bottom of the urges to be so extremely violent and to hurt others.

What I am suggesting is not a fantasy. We have learned to understand so many things. We know a lot about addiction that we did not understand even ten years ago. We also know a lot about learning, how we learn that we did not understand when I was going to school many years ago.

The NSA's approach is not likely to work. First, they are likely to look for the terrorists of the past, not those of the future. They are likely to look at the ways that terrorists used to communicate, not the way they are communicating now or will communicate in the future.

Second, the information that Snowden has revealed is new to most of us law-abiding types, but probably not to the terrorists or the criminals. Their networks, their friends are like them, looking for ways to avoid detection. Even more so since 9/11 than before. They probably don't need to communicate via electronic media about the crimes they want to commit. Before Snowden, the Boston bombers organized their crimes without getting caught. That's the way I would expect future terrorists to work.

Snowden's revelations will negatively affect the trust that we ordinary Americans have in our government, but will probably make little impression on terrorists. They are probably already devising ways to avoid the internet if they haven't already.

It is said that guns don't kill people, people do. Well, electronic communications do not kill people, people do. We need to spend a lot more money trying to figure out what triggers extremely violent acts and a lot less monitoring the internet (although some internet monitoring is perfectly OK -- as long as it complies with the 4th Amendment requirement that a warrant be obtained from an impartial judge in an impartial court).

And let's close down the secret courts. Secret courts are a big danger unto themselves. Let's let a wide variety of judges issue warrants for the NSA. Judges should be impartial. That is essential to our justice system. The FISA court judges are chosen pretty much by one person and inevitably political points of view will play a role in their selection. That needs to end. If it doesn't, the FISA court will become more and more powerful. Just watch and see. That is how secrecy works. It eats into a democratic system, undermines the dissemination of information that makes democracy viable and pretty soon, the secrecy takes over.

We are already seeing secrecy grabbing the helm of the ship of state. Close down the secret courts. Goes for military courts too.

[stevenleser]

102. Nope, they have a mission and that is SIGINT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

71. Seeing as how what it's doing is having the opposite effect of it's (alleged) purpose..shut it down.

[Hippo_Tron]

75. Get a search warrant if they want to read peoples' e-mails?

Just a thought...

[neverforget]

83. But that's hard and the Constitution is quaint

[Politicalboi]

76. Tap and bug Dick Cheney and Rumsfailed

[Recursion]

77. Stopping terrorism isn't the NSA's job. Their job is to secure the US's communications

That said, I'm not opposed in principle to the NSA anonymously monitoring patterns in US communications traffic (I was on the "pro-NSA" side for a long time here because at first it seemed like that's all they were doing), but only to prevent attacks against the communications system itself.

The FBI is the best place to keep counterterrorism surveillance; let them keep doing it. The NSA should focus on keeping US communications secure. Obviously the NSA (and CIA and DIA and ONI and...) should be able to cooperate with the FBI in that where appropriate, but this really is the FBI's job.

[JDPriestly]

78. They should study terrorists, profile them, look for people who fit the profile, study them some

more, and only place those individuals under surveillance who actually are suspected of having ties to terrorism. They should leave peace activists, Occupy types, and law-abiding people alone.

If they really pursued terrorists, they would probably find that those who assist or are terrorists are few, very, very few in number. Who knows? If they focused their work more effectively, they might actually prevent terrorism from becoming a problem inside the US.

In LA, gangs are a problem. I really don't think terrorists are. Gangs hang out on street corners or meet in their houses. Police should be looking there for them, not on Facebook or in locations on the internet that non-terrorists communicate. My e-mails are not going to help the NSA. So, they should leave those alone.

What percentage of the population of your state do you think should be classified as terrorists? What percentage of the US? How about the percentage of the world? What percentage of people in Britain as opposed to US?

My impression is that we really don't have very many, if any, American-born-and-raised terrorists. Very, very few. Should be easy to spot.

Now, serial killers and mass murderers? That's another story, but they generally don't declare themselves on the internet or the phone. And if they did, the NSA would not be interested. They prefer eavesdropping on lawyers or on Angela Merkel's phone.

[reusrename]

86. The realistic options are pretty limited.

I don't think abandoning the technology, or outlawing it, or trying to put more legal restraints on it, are workable solutions. There is no putting this toothpaste back in the tube.

I would look toward outlawing the secrecy associated with these programs. If their use was more open to the public it would lessen the likelihood of misuse. I do think there may be a noble application for this technology, but the secrecy surrounding it only protects those who are criminally inclined. The secrecy does nothing to protect the public. On the contrary, it's what is endangering the people.

[Egalitarian Thug]

87. First step: Quit making more terrorists. n/t

[L0oniX]

92. Close up shop and close most military bases in other countries. Make restitution...

to the families and relatives of those who have been murdered by JSOC and drones and military personnel.

[treestar]

93. Nothing at all

In fact, we should not even spy, because we deserve what we get after all the evil we have done like removing the Shah 50 some years ago and interfering in Latin America, etc.

but really that is in essence their argument. And to mock the idea there may ever be another terrorist attack.

[Aerows]

107. I'll step out of that pile of utter bullshit

and point out that if it can catch criminals, it can create them from innocent people. That is literally what you are advocating for when you advocate for the surveillance state.