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It is possible that no significant terror attacks were even attempted against the US since 9/11. And if an attack was stopped they wouldn't necessarily want to

It is possible that no significant terror attacks were even attempted against the US since 9/11. And if an attack was stopped they wouldn't necessarily want to publish how they stopped it. So it is impossible to really know if the surveillance does anything.

chimeracoder 10y ago
> It is possible that no significant terror attacks were even attempted against the US since 9/11 The TSA itself has literally admitted that there is no evidence of terrorist plots against aviation in the US[0]. That doesn't cover everything that could be possibly labeled 'terrorism', but given that piece of evidence, it does raise more than a little doubt about the prevalence of threats elsewhere. [0] https://boingboing.net/2013/10/17/tsa-admits-terrorists-in-ame.html https://boingboing.net/2013/10/17/tsa-admits-terrorists-in-a....
- ethanbond 10y ago
  Since when is the TSA an intelligence service? They're mall cops.
us0r 10y ago
>And if an attack was stopped they wouldn't necessarily want to publish how they stopped it. So it is impossible to really know if the surveillance does anything. A trial, send a group to gitmo, a drone strike? If they could provide an example it would be plastered all over the place. Hell they even post youtube videos of their drone work - https://www.youtube.com/user/centcom/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/centcom/videos.
woodman 10y ago
> So it is impossible to really know if the surveillance does anything. We know that it has a chilling effect, and the likelihood of it actually performing the stated mission is really low. We've had several massive leaks, but the one place that evidence would have definitely shown up would have been the DOS cable leak - because it was an unfiltered dump. While SIGINT certainly shouldn't appear in anything below top-secret, there would be hints. The stratfor leak would have contained hints as well, due to all the candid emails discussing intel from gov sources (see access to OBL intel cache for an example). Also, the FBI would likely brag about more than their sorry list of terrorist entrapment cases. One can't make the claim that operational SIGINT is so special that it never leaks, because that is one of the classified emails found on Clinton's private server - emailed from a former government worker that shouldn't have had access in the first place.
kevinnk 10y ago
What would you consider "significant"? There's been a number of terrorist attacks post 9/11 and I'd consider at least a couple pretty significant (San Bernardino, Fort Hood, Boston Marathon, Charleston Church). There's been a number of foiled plots too: see http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks.html http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks... and http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/nsa-analysis.html http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/nsa-analysis.h...

chimeracoder 10y ago

> It is possible that no significant terror attacks were even attempted against the US since 9/11 The TSA itself has literally admitted that there is no evidence of terrorist plots against aviation in the US[0]. That doesn't cover everything that could be possibly labeled 'terrorism', but given that piece of evidence, it does raise more than a little doubt about the prevalence of threats elsewhere. [0] https://boingboing.net/2013/10/17/tsa-admits-terrorists-in-ame.html https://boingboing.net/2013/10/17/tsa-admits-terrorists-in-a....

ethanbond 10y ago
Since when is the TSA an intelligence service? They're mall cops.

us0r 10y ago

>And if an attack was stopped they wouldn't necessarily want to publish how they stopped it. So it is impossible to really know if the surveillance does anything. A trial, send a group to gitmo, a drone strike? If they could provide an example it would be plastered all over the place. Hell they even post youtube videos of their drone work - https://www.youtube.com/user/centcom/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/centcom/videos.

woodman 10y ago

> So it is impossible to really know if the surveillance does anything. We know that it has a chilling effect, and the likelihood of it actually performing the stated mission is really low. We've had several massive leaks, but the one place that evidence would have definitely shown up would have been the DOS cable leak - because it was an unfiltered dump. While SIGINT certainly shouldn't appear in anything below top-secret, there would be hints. The stratfor leak would have contained hints as well, due to all the candid emails discussing intel from gov sources (see access to OBL intel cache for an example). Also, the FBI would likely brag about more than their sorry list of terrorist entrapment cases. One can't make the claim that operational SIGINT is so special that it never leaks, because that is one of the classified emails found on Clinton's private server - emailed from a former government worker that shouldn't have had access in the first place.

kevinnk 10y ago

What would you consider "significant"? There's been a number of terrorist attacks post 9/11 and I'd consider at least a couple pretty significant (San Bernardino, Fort Hood, Boston Marathon, Charleston Church). There's been a number of foiled plots too: see http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks.html http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks... and http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/nsa-analysis.html http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/nsa-analysis.h...