Listening in on Al-Qaida

[TK-8252]

Should the NSA really have it's hands tide like it did before 9/11?

 

Well, I hate to say it, but it's always going to have its hands tied. It's the government, it's a bureaucracy, and it's only gotten to be a bigger bureaucracy under Bush's direction. Solution? Make it SMALLER. Hell, turn it over to a private company and they'll really get the job done.

[toms]

This is exactly why Republicans keep winning elections. What is your solution to the problem of potential Al Qaeda cells in America? Should the NSA really have it's hands tide like it did before 9/11?

 

Irrational fear??? You are probably right. But you say it like that is a good reason to elect a government...

 

Did you ever hear a saying that there is "a price for freedom"? Well, this is it.

 

We could cut crime in an instant if there were 1984 style cameras in every home, gps trackers on every person, people listening in on every phone call and email, permits and travel restrictions to track terrorist movements, a secret police force and informers that reported everyone who was thinking of commiting a crime or an act of terrorism.

 

.. we'd be like communist russia or china and have no freedom... but we'd all be a lot safer.

 

no country can ever protect itself completely from insane random acts... and a free country is even more vunnerable due to it's very nature.

 

Communist Russia and China certainly seemed to have a lot less terrorism than the USA.. so i guess they had it right after all? Its only after russia embraced western style democracy and got all sensitive that those pesky chechens started to cause trouble.

 

Of course, even now russia's security forces probably don't have their "hands tied" to anywhere near the extent that you seem to think the NSA/CIA does.. but that doesn't seem to help them much does it?

And israel has some of the most powerful, dangerous secret police in the world, plus many restrictions on freedoms and human rights - but even so some crazy person can always find a hole.

 

You can't be vigilant all the time, against every possible threat. They could have doubled the NSA budget, taken away a lot of civil liberites and I would still bet my life that the 9/11 attacks would have happened.

 

All they are really doing is scaring people with spurious threats.. and its amazing how quickly people will give up their rights when they are scared. WW2 veterans must be wondering why they fought and died for our freedoms when we just cower and give them away.

[rccar328]

You can't be vigilant all the time, against every possible threat. They could have doubled the NSA budget, taken away a lot of civil liberites and I would still bet my life that the 9/11 attacks would have happened.

We can't be vigilant all the time, so we shouldn't be vigilant at all? One of the Constitutionally defined roles of the US federal government is to "provide for the common defense." After 9/11, the Bush administration (and, to a lesser extent, the Clinton administration) was sharply criticized for failing to "connect the dots." Things like the Patriot Act and the NSA program are reactions to that criticism...yet the administration is criticized for it. The problem is that many people (our politicians in particular) want it both ways: they want to be totally secure and totally free...but that's not how it works.

 

Personally, I think some security is a good thing, and I am not bothered by anything I've seen so far. In fact, I think that the US government should be going farther, by securing the ports and the borders. However, I believe that limiting just how far the government can go is essential - while we can't have total freedom, we cannot be totally secure, either...and that's just how it should be. Personally, I am willing to go through life knowing that I may be at some risk of dying at the hands of terrorists if that means that my freedoms are secure. This is why I disagree with President Bush when he calls for Congress to make the Patriot Act permanent. While there may be certain portions of the Patriot Act that could be made permanent, the entire Act definitely should not be.

 

Let's face it: President Bush answers to the people. The fact that the same people who criticized President Bush for failing to 'connect the dots' after 9/11 are now complaining when he takes measures to do so speaks to those peoples' stupidity, not to some kind of 1984-style plot to turn the United States into a Stalinistic police state.

 

In my mind, what it gets down to is this: throughout our history, Americans have given up freedoms during times of war in order to ensure America's security...and the War on Terror should be no different. Our government has a Constitutionally defined duty to ensure the safety of its citizens. However, it is essential that the people keep the government accountable to set those extra powers aside once the war is won. It's been done in the past...and that tradition should continue.

[TK-8252]

Our government has a Constitutionally defined duty to ensure the safety of its citizens.

 

I'm a billion times more likely to be killed by a gang member when I travel into the city or be killed by a robber when I go into a convenience store than I am to be killed in a terrorist attack.

 

Why isn't the government ensuring my safety in THAT way? Why are they so focused on foiling the plots of terrorists than they are to foil the plots of gangs and robbers?

 

Shouldn't there be a "War on Gangs" instead? Or a "War on Robbery" even. They could tap the phones of all gang suspects and robbery suspects. They could create secret prisons where suspects could be locked up in without trial, representation, or rights.

[StaffSaberist]

Maybe they already exist. I couldn't say; it would be a *secret* after all...

 

Sam, Sec. 217 seems to have been designed specifically for computer and internet eavesdropping, not wiretapping.

 

I'm not so worried about Internet eavesdropping. Really because of two things:

 

1) My Internet activity is basically about 5 forums, a little other stuff. Not much, and nothing at all related to supporting terrorist cells AFAIK. At least, I don't think a Computer Help forum is going to support Al-Queda...

 

2) Hackers attempt to infiltrate my computer several hundred times a day. I actually, on a whim, logged every attack my firewalls, etc. foiled for a week. The file size was in the 400 MB range. So one more spying attempt isn't going to make a difference to me, eh? Though I can just see the headlines: "Government internet taps foiled by personal firewalls"

 

I'm just going to put my 2 cents in and leave (for now, anyway): I have no problems with the CIA monitoring international calls to/from suspected terrorists. I have seen no proof (and based on this thread, you aren't very likely to be able to provide such proof) that W has stepped beyond the boundaries, and I therefore support this -- but by no means am I a hardcore fanatic on the issue. It's really a borderline issue for me, and I'm likely to become against it if W ever does cross the line. Just to make it clear.

 

TK-8252, you can't play the "improbable" harp. What are the odds of planes being flown into buildings? Incredibly small. Yet, two very important buildings are missing from the New York skyscape.

 

What are the odds that some poor nation would attempt to build a nuclear bomb? While there is no proof, the odds are likely to be beaten by Iran, who is being so stubborn they are suspect at best.

 

As we were all told in ESB: "Never tell me the odds!"

[TK-8252]

TK-8252, you can't play the "improbable" harp. What are the odds of planes being flown into buildings? Incredibly small. Yet, two very important buildings are missing from the New York skyscape.

 

I'm saying that thousands of people are killed all the time in gang shootings and robberies, and yet it seems that the government has singled out terrorism as the single biggest threat to the American people. The reason why is because 9/11 was a tragedy... and that poor guy who was shot on the street was a statistic.

[rccar328]

The federal government has singled out terrorism...yet across America, local and county law enforcement agencies are doing just what you're suggesting. The FBI also has units that focus on gangs. The fact that the government hasn't solved the gang problem doesn't mean that they aren't trying to do something about it. I mean, the government has had its 'war on poverty' for how long? About 40 years or so? And they haven't fixed that problem yet. If the government can't fix poverty in 40 years and billions upon billions of dollars worth of trying (and it never will fix the problem - that's the sad part), it's not going to do any better with gangs...it could, but the measures that need to be taken to fix the gang problems would be stopped by the likes of the ACLU before anything substantive came of it.

 

As StaffSaberist said, what were the odds of terrorists hijacking planes and flying them into buildings? Pretty small...but it happened. And on top of that, it wasn't like that was the first time terrorists had tried to take down the World Trade Center towers (both attacks were perpetrated by Al-Qaida, no less). Yes, the odds are small...but the consequences of inaction are very great, as we discovered on 9/11. Just because one problem is more likely doesn't mean we should ignore the other - we should be focusing on both problems...and we are. Terrorism is in many ways an international problem, and as such, it is being delt with by the federal government. Gangs are local problems, so it stands to reason that local officials would be better equipped to deal with the problem.

[TK-8252]

I mean, the government has had its 'war on poverty' for how long? About 40 years or so? And they haven't fixed that problem yet.

 

So what makes you think that a "War on Terrorism" is going to work if all the other wars on something have failed? War is a government program, Mr. Conservative!

 

As StaffSaberist said, what were the odds of terrorists hijacking planes and flying them into buildings? Pretty small...but it happened.

 

What are the chances that tomorrow we get nuked by North Korea... pretty small... but it could happen. Why aren't we doing anything about it??

[StaffSaberist]

We have been attempting to get North Korea to disarm:

 

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/nkorea/

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/northkorea/

 

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB87/

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2340405.stm

[toms]

We can't be vigilant all the time, so we shouldn't be vigilant at all?

I think i explained it badly. I was going for "no matter how vigilant we are we can't be completely secure... so we shouldn't risk other freedoms simply to increase largely irrelevant vigilance". Or somthing.

 

Personally, I am willing to go through life knowing that I may be at some risk of dying at the hands of terrorists if that means that my freedoms are secure. This is why I disagree with President Bush when he calls for Congress to make the Patriot Act permanent. While there may be certain portions of the Patriot Act that could be made permanent, the entire Act definitely should not be.

 

...

 

However, it is essential that the people keep the government accountable to set those extra powers aside once the war is won. It's been done in the past...and that tradition should continue.

 

Those two statements appear to contradict. I definately don't trust Bush or Blair to voluntarily give back any powers they took "at time of war". Infact I don't see that this is a war that can officially ever end... so i just see them taking more powers each time, and none of those powers having much effect on our security.

 

The best guides we have for the war on terror are the war on communism and the war on drugs. Neither turned out very well. Both caused numerous innocent parties to suffer. Both caused out governments to justify doing some pretty terrible things in the name of a greater good that was never achieved.

[TK-8252]

We have been attempting to get North Korea to disarm:

 

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/nkorea/

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/northkorea/

 

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB87/

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2340405.stm

 

I know, but that hardly amounts to a "War on North Korea" like a "War on Terrorism."

[toms]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federal_source_.html