U.S. Mass Surveillance Has No Record of Thwarting Large Terror Attacks, Regardless of Snowden Leaks
Despite the intelligence communitys attempts to blame NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for the tragic attacks in Paris on Friday, the NSAs mass surveillance programs do not have a track record before or after Snowden of identifying or thwarting actual large-scale terrorist plots.
CIA Director John Brennan asserted on Monday that many of these terrorist operations are uncovered and thwarted before theyre able to be carried out, and lamented the post-Snowden handwringing that has made that job more difficult.
But the reason there havent been any large-scale terror attacks by ISIS in the U.S. is not because they were averted by the intelligence community, but because with the possible exception of one that was foiled by local police none were actually planned.
And even before Snowden, the NSA wasnt able to provide a single substantiated example of its surveillance dragnet preventing any domestic attack at all.
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-s-mass-surveillance-has-no-record-of-thwarting-large-terror-attacks-regardless-of-snowden-leaks/
marmar
(77,081 posts)...... and nothing but a consciously phony excuse to amp up the surveillance.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)A truly superb New York Times editorial this morning mercilessly shames the despicable effort by U.S. government officials to shamelessly exploit the Paris attacks to advance long-standing agendas. Focused on the public campaign of the CIA to manipulate post-Paris public emotions to demonize transparency and privacy and to demand still-greater surveillance powers for themselves, the NYT editors begin:
Its a wretched yet predictable ritual after each new terrorist attack: Certain politicians and government officials waste no time exploiting the tragedy for their own ends. The remarks on Monday by John Brennan, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, took that to a new and disgraceful low.
The editorial, which you should really read in its entirety, destroys most of the false, exploitative, blame-shifting claims uttered by U.S. officials about these issues. Because intelligence agencies knew of the attackers and received warnings, the NYT editors explain that the problem in [stopping the Paris attacks] was not a lack of data, but a failure to act on information authorities already had. They point out that the NSAs mass surveillance powers to be mildly curbed by post-Snowden reforms are ineffective and, in any event, have not yet stopped. And most importantly, they document that the leader of this lowly campaign, CIA chief John Brennan, has been proven to be an inveterate liar:
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/18/nyt-editorial-slams-disgraceful-cia-exploitation-of-paris-attacks-but-submissive-media-role-is-key/