Obama defends surveillance effort as 'trade-off' for security (opens in new tab)

If you were trying to quote Ben Franklin, you botched it. He said "Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety", which is significantly different.

Sadly this is not like you were given a choice in this particular case.

I think you have to start with the fact that while AQ was at full force and relatively untargetted by the US it took them 8 years between attacks on the World Trade Center, there is just no epistemological model which gives you any way to measure effectiveness once we are already at war in Afghanistan.

Additionally you have a problem of us saying that we have to fight them over there so they can't fight us over here, but that has a side effect of ensuring that they don't have to come over here to fight us. If we include every bombing in Iraq or Afghanistan which has targetted US or coalition forces, the result has been a flurry of successful attacks against us. If you exclude them you end up with a footnote which says "true we haven't been attacked over here but it is also true that resources are being diverted to attack US interests in war zones."

The simple fact is they have done so much and in such a way that the success couldn't be measured even if they wanted to.

Bad opsec to tip your hand about ongoing operations.

Wouldn't that just serve the terrorists?

The general public agrees with Obama for the most part. And no, the general public's consensus cannot be seen by reading internet blogs/news comments.

Thanks for the link. Some great points there like:

* Since 9/11 we have not had a mass-scale terror attack. We can say 9/11 was a one-off, an aberration, and cannot be a justification for everything the government wishes to do.

* If domestic spying is for our own good, the government should be proud to tell us what they are doing for us, instead of being embarrassed when it leaks. If you're not doing anything wrong then you've got nothing to hide, right?

* The system completely missed the Boston bombers, two of the dumbest, least sophisticated bro' terrorists in the world.

* If instead of spending trillions and trillions of dollars on spying and domestic surveillance we spent that same money on repairing our infrastructure and improving our schools, wouldn't that more directly create a stronger America?

All are valid points to consider in this discussion. But for me, it all boils down to the risk terrorist pose to America vs risk of government abusing its power. No contest. I'll take my chances with the "terrorists" any time, any place, any day.

Let us not forget the sacrifice made by our founding fathers to give us liberty. Our freedom came at great price that shouldn't be taking lightly. Only after an open national discussion, with the consensus necessary for a constitutional amendment, should the government be given this power over us that they are taking now in secret.

It's naive to pretend the trade-off doesn't exist already or that a decision hasn't been made. The trade-off has always existed- a warrant can be produced to violate your privacy. It's just a question of what the procedure should be, what information can be searched, what situations it can be used in, etc.

I don't think there is much opposition in the general population to searches where probable cause exists. But that is indeed a trade-off between security and privacy.

Hey guys, there are these terrorists that live over there, it's somewhere in the middle east, but it's not really important where. They hate us, for some reason. Probably religious reasons. You know, the extremists, not to say that religion is bad or anything, just people who take it way too far. Well anyway, they trained up people, hijacked some planes, and flew them into 2 US buildings killing thousands on September 11, 2001.

These guys are bad guys. Clearly. They're our enemies. They attacked us once, already, and it's pretty safe to assume they want to attack us more. They want to kill you and me. They hate us. They're here, right now, and are planning the next attack. Maybe at your local mall, on that day you head there to check out some new arrivals and grab some grub at the food court. Have you thought about that? Your mall could totally be bombed by one of these guys at any time. Or the train you take to work. Or the bus that's pulling up next to you while you walk through the streets. BOOM. Any time. Anywhere. You're seriously screwed. You're in so much danger.

But we want to catch these guys before they blow you up. To do that, though, we need to see all information, all the time. These guys communicate over Facebook, they search how to blow up your mall on Google, they use e-mail just like you. They also call each other on your phone network. We need to nail these fuckers. So we're going to just listen to everything. Just in case. It's not you, it's them. We need to catch them.

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When did we stop classifying scaring citizens into forfeiting constitutional rights as terrorism? Our government scares me significantly more than anyone I've ever seen at an airport, even the crazy ones. It scares me more than the thought of traveling to the middle east and wearing an "IM AN AMERICAN" t-shirt. And you want to call THEM the terrorists?

I'd be more afraid of being blown up by a drone strike while in the middle east than being shot by some radical islamic extremist who's been taught to hate us.

The forfeit of constitutional rights is unjustifiable.

Not to worry, citizen--great strides are being made in the pricing of medication and health services so even that opportunity for harm will elude you!