MSNBC has military apologist to defuse "Data Mining" fears

[Armstead]

Col. Jack Jacobs, one of those retire military analysts was just on to discuss the new NYT story about widesprad data mining by the govt.

The real problem he says, is that the adfministration has not done a good enough job of convincing the nation we are at war.

It's tough, he says. If we really want to be effective in the WOT, those crappy laws that get in the way would have to be changed. Because of that quaint thing called "democracy" it would be very difficult to do what we really need to do to fight terrorism. Thus, our hands will be tied unless the American people wake up and decide that silly notions like civil liberties are mere anachronisms.

(I have exagerated the above paraphrase, but that's the jist of it.)

Col. Jacobs is entitled to his opinions. But it's a classic example of the news networks putting people like him on as "expert analysts" who are supposed to set us mere mortals straight.

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. Another shill that gets his rocks off being fawned over by the MSM

They just love the attention, playing war expert from a TV studio with tons of lights and camera focused on them. Three years and we still don't believe in Bush's war of choice.

Of course no one was ever wrongly spied on. Not with our fearless leader in Washington looking out for us.

I feel less and less safe every day.

[robbedvoter]

2. Oh, if an army guys tells me i should be spied on, I am relieved

See, everything looks so much more legit if an uniform is involved...
Happy, happy, joy , joy! So, that's what our darling Mayor Bloomberg meant when he was saying that we, the people are the first line of defense...(always wondered who the LAST line is - must be them oil rigs)

[Silverhair]

3. The laws do get in the way of efficient enforcement. They're supposed to.

There is an eternal conflicts between the task of a gov't to protect the citizens, and the rights of the citizens that it is supposed to protect. A GENUINE police state with honest police is extremely efficient at protecting the citizens from both terrorists and common crime. And if it stopped there, everyting would be great. But no gov't is ever able to stop there. That kind of power corrupts and a gov't with that power would soon become a worse danger than the terrorists and criminals. So we place restrictions on the gov't's ability to protect us from bad guys to prevent the gov't from becoming our worst nightmare.

[ewoden]

4. What you need to realize is . . .

The guy is a retired colonel. This means he didn't have the practical common sense one would see in a caree non-com. He also didn't have the intellect to make general. He was some backwater intermediary, who finally got passed over one too many times and retired without the coveted holy grail.

I personally only pay attention to the so-caled experts that are retired master sergeants, master gunnery segeants, CPO's, or sergeant majors or those with one or more stars on thir collars. The rest are merely those with incomplete knowledge of the ranks and of tactics and strategy (middle managers if you will.

[theshadow]

5. In defense of Jack Jacobs....

..... he won the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery in Viet Nam. He was no desk jockey.
http://www.pbs.org/weta/americanvalor/stories/jacobs.html

[Silverhair]

6. One of the most influential men in the US military retired as a colonel.

Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy, developed the "Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model" of analyizing the combat capabilities of opposing forces to predict the most likely outcome of battle.

Colonel is about as high as tactical brilliance alone will take you. To get above colonel you need to concern yourself more with logistics and politics.