How much snooping and listening should the security agencies do in trying to foil terrorist attacks?

I think it is more important to look into WHY they want to attack us and start focusing on how to make people not want to attack us. I mean, where was the news coverage on the victims of drone attacks speaking to congress yesterday?
There is a lot of info out there regarding the fact that they want to attack us because of what we are doing in the Middle East rather than us being “free and rich.”

There was plenty of information leading up to 9/11 about possible attacks and that was before we were all being wiretapped(maybe).
With total data mining like we have now, how can they possibly sift through all of that data to predict possible attacks accurately, if they couldn’t stop it before?
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-logic-of-suicide-terrorism/

I believe data mining on an entire country or countries, can more accurately predict and stop dissent than terrorist attacks. It is also important to keep in mind that a terrorist is labeled such based on perspective.
To drone victims, we are the terrorists.

It is a difficult problem. Like you, I am convinced that the NSA has gone too far in the name of security. We now have the ‘1984’ scenario in effect. I believe the NSA has gone beyond the limits of the Patriot Act as well. We have no privacy left. That may be useful for security but it brings with it the real and present danger for abuse. The whole Nixon scandal began with accusations that he had participated in a break-in at the DNC campaign headquarters. Now we seem to be saying it’s OK to spy on them, hell we spy on everyone we just promise not to use it.

We didn’t catch the Boston Marathon bombers even though we had all this in place and even a direct warning from Russia. That leads me to believe the only real use for this information is political. If they want a camera on every corner, so be it but if they want to take pictures or listen to my phone calls, get a warrant. My bare ass bobbing up and down is not intended for public consumption and most of the public appreciates that.

Another rare moment of agree on this.

More importantly, who snoops on the snoopers?

@Jaxk: “if they want to take pictures or listen to my phone calls, get a warrant”

I agree. If this means that they will possibly miss out on catching a terrorist making plans to bomb a federal building or blow up a plane, well that’s too bad. It’s a price that I’m willing to pay.

@bolwerk: It would be nice to be notified when my email or phone calls have been viewed. If they have a ‘legitimate’ reason to view my email, and have obtained a warrant, I would then like to be notified. “We read your emails. Sorry. We suck. We thought you were going to blow up fluther headquarters. Sincerely, the NSA.”

A warrant is such a ridiculously minimal protection anyway. There is no reason they should not be mandatory.

The pig state wants to have no oversight and infinite discretion. The same attitude explains why that disgusting swine Pike got a bonus and a cushy retirement for pepper spraying innocent, nonviolent protesters.

I’m with %100 @tom_g

An American citizen can not expect the government to stop any and all attacks from stateless criminals. Any expectation of such is irrational.

Listening and watching by the political state, when you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, is onerous enough that it is addressed in the Bill of Rights.

The movie to watch, if you haven’t seen it and want to be creeped out is “The Lives of Others”.

Look how helpful the NSA is. It brings people together. @Jaxk, @josie, and I are on the same page here!

None.

Just read they tapped the Pope’s phone…#Schoolboysexchat

more like kindergartenboysexchat

There is a balance to be struck and private citizens are entitled to some privacy. Would you want your neighbour to trawl through your garbage to see what he could find on the grounds he thought you might be a terrorist? That is what the NSA is doing. They have gone too far. They think no one should be entitled to any privacy except themselves. Do they really need all this data? What are they doing with it? And more importantly, what might they begin doing with it if left unchecked?

I don’t believe there is a ‘balance’ to be found. The idea of giving security agencies such powers is a lot like the idea of communism. It works out great on paper but turns to shit once it’s exposed to the realities of greed, corruption, and politics.

Besides, it’s nothing new. The NSA is just taking cues from J. Edgar’s old playbook and applying it to the new technologies that we simply can’t live without.

If the information was used strictly for defense, I wouldn’t mind, but how can spying on every citizen be for national defense?

Perhaps watching for patterns and following up on that works, but who knows?

Agencies tasked with spying on foreign threats now spy on domestic citizens without judicial authorization or oversite of any type. This applies to both Canada and the USA.

In the USA, the “Patriot Act” was a thinly veiled excuse to intrude into the lives of Americans on a scale hitherto unimagined. Despite claims that these expanded powers have prevented serious planned acts of terrorism, I remain doubtful that the benefits claimed come close to compensating average citizens for their lost privacy and freedoms on which the country was founded.

One would hope that all of this personal intrusion by the government has resulted in their being able to quietly break-up terrorist activity that would have resulted in more death, destruction and great public sorrow.

One would hope…

While citizens in a free society can (and sometimes certainly should) complain about and mistrust our government, we all need to remember that there are likely many terrible events which DIDN’T happen, and that’s probably not just due to clean living and good luck.

We recently spent a lot of time playing with our grandson at Brooklyn Bridge Park. It’s still there. So is Lower Manhattan.

I’m just sayin’....

But is the NSA trying to prevent terrorist attacks? This Gubanatorial candidate claims that the NSA planned 9/11

Being a huge nerd I should be outraged. I really hate the argument about you shouldn’t care if you have nothing to hide. My problem with that is what happens if Michele Bachmann is elected as President. That crazy lady would probably toss me in Gitmo the for spam I receive.

This is the problem. What happens if another terrorist attack happens after the spying is curtailed? Obama let 9/11 v2.0 happen by being lax on security… You know the media would run with it and 80% of the population would agree. So what can he really do? He can’t win.

@hearkat If there were any truth to the 9/11 truther conspiracy theories, don’t you think Edward Snowden would have blown the whistle on that first and foremost?

To everyone else, it’s great to see we all can agree on something. Maybe All Hallow’s Eve does set some strange spirit loose.

To the pricks at the NSA who say that so long as you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, why is it you guys want to kill anyone who even gives us a peek under your kimono.

If we leave these powers in place, someone will get themselves elected president and will turn them to establishing permanent political hegemony. It would be so incredibly easy to do. Murphy’s law it true. I’ve been in engineering all my life, and I know that. “Anything that can possibly go wrong, does.” This is something that it is screamingly obvious can go wrong.

I think the thing to remember is that all this spying is not to keep YOU safe or to foil plots against YOU. It is to protect “the government” and those who are a part of the government so, in my opinion, no amount of snooping or listening in on your own people is justified.

If the objective of terrorists is to restrict our freedom then they would appear to be winning.

@ETpro – I don’t know if the candidate has been asked that question. I had never heard of him until I opened my sample ballot to start reviewing potential candidates. Was Mr. Snowden under the NSA’s employ pre-9/11? Has he reported on any NSA activities that happened more than 5 years ago? I haven’t followed the specifics that closely. And let me clarify that I am not a conspiracy theory believer. I am agnostic – I don’t believe that the press knows or reports the full truth, but I don’t believe that there are such huge organizations that covertly control the world and murder JFK and fake a space program, etc. I was just amused and surprised to see the gentleman above on the ballot. If the covert powers can pull off those monumental events, they certainly would have succeeded in silencing this guy.

@johnpowell . . . He’s already won twice. He doesn’t have to worry about being elected again so why can’t he just stick by his guns and do what he believes is right?

He probably believes his authoritarian policies are right.

Snooping on real suspects is fine with me.

If Angela Merkel makes phone calls to Al Qaeda, child pornography rings, weapons smugglers and the like, go snoop on her. Otherwise don’t.

@mattbrowne: I betcha almost anyone in high positions of government authority hits at least one of those things, especially if “other” includes things like the mafia and someone else who is corrupt.

But, hey, that’s why the state should have no privacy. Privacy is a human right, and states don’t have rights.

I’d be surprised if they’re not tracking the brand of toilet paper I buy…

@snowberry: use some and send it to them. They can learn about your diet.