How would data mining have prevented the OKC attack?

[Virginia Dare]

my apologies if anyone here has posted a similar topic, I've been away for a few days.

We know that Timothy McVeigh conspired with at least one other person, namely Terry Nichols, to blow up the Murrah building in Oklahoma City, causing the death and injury of hundreds, including small children housed in a day care facility.

However, I fail to see how the Bush Administration's data mining would have prevented this attack, or any future, similarly planned attack.

Are we to assume that all future terrorist attacks will be planned overseas, by foreign born persons? How typically stupid and short-sighted of them, not to mention of us, if we are to believe that.

[boobooday]

1. Data Mining would have helped in that case

But not Bush's kind. The kind where you trace the whereabouts of dangerous materials that are sold in bulk quantities. It might have helped prevent OKC, but tracking phone calls wouldn't have been likely to raise alarms in that case.

In other words, not data mining, but regulation of hazardous stuff, (i.e. large quantities of fertilizer which can be used as explosives) seems to be the key.

The scope of their project belies their argument about terrorism. To collect that much data would only seem to hinder efforts to find terrorists. It's like, you can see a diamond shining on top of a pile of manure, so instead of plucking it out with your fingers, you rent a backhoe and scoop up about two tons of crap, and then set about looking for the diamond again in the now-remixed mess.

It's obviously about more than the war on terror. It's about perpetual power.

[htuttle]

2. It's simple -- Here's how...

The ATF would have been able to track all the guns that Koresh had been buying in Waco, and could have just shut them down before they became a problem. No Waco == No OKC bombing, if we believe McVeigh about his motivations.

Also, with NSA tracking of everything, the militias that McVeigh and Nichols had belonged to would have been raided long before they did anything. McVeigh's anti-state tendencies would have alerted authorities years before he blew anything up, and would have been neutralized before he got within 100 yards of a truck full of fertilizer.

Would this stop all terrorist attacks? No.
Am I being slightly facetious with this post? Of course.

[Virginia Dare]

3. I see your point, but...

didn't the Chimp say he wasn't spying on American citizens?

:shrug:

:spray:

:rofl:

[C_U_L8R]

4. sure - spying without a warrant

can stop all kinds of things....
in particular... freedom