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It's a big deal because it's almost impossible to use this information in a way that won't have a huge cost to 1) the people visiting the US and 2) the US pub

It's a big deal because it's almost impossible to use this information in a way that won't have a huge cost to 1) the people visiting the US and 2) the US public (via tax support for enforcement which is driven by this policy) Wolfram Alpha says that 322 people visit the US in a year. Let's assume the technologists in charge of this (who are really no different than any other corporate engineer - capable, but fairly disinterested in their work and apathetic/unaffected by the results) manage to make the process 99.9999% effective in screening out the innocent, and 100% effective in screening terrorists who enter the US. Well, that world-class accuracy gives you 99.9999 * 322 million => 322 people a year who are caught in the dragnet (and in all likelihood, it will be multiples of this number; likely thousands of individuals). So now we are interrogating, investigating, and suspecting 322 innocent people in order to catch the... oh, wait; there really haven't been any terrorist attacks like 9/11 since... 9/11. The Boston Bombers were home-grown. Anti-abortion extremists, religious fundamentalists, bullied schoolchildren, and paranoid schizophrenics have all tried or been accused of trying to wage terrorism on the US, but there's not a single event[1] that it looks like this policy could have prevented. But we're investigating 322 individuals (and their families, friends, and close contacts) in order to do it. And at what cost? We will never know, because those numbers are classified due to their sensitive nature. In the end, none of this matters: the government was never interested in terror prevention in the first place. They just needed a new bogey man to replace drugs, the Russians, whatever as a reason to ignore the constitution. The war on terrorism is a farce. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States#2010.E2.80.93present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States... * edit: added the parenthetical note on numbers, multiples of estimate

ljf 9y ago
This. The most deadly terrorist group to hit the USA was the KKK, with over 3000 black Americans lynched and also over 1000 white Americans killed. Plus countless lives ruined, terrorised, and affected. These were Americans killing Americans, and similar to the pattern we've seen throughout the 1900s and into the 2000s, it is most likely that future terrorists will also be home grown. As to this system, was there anything to be gained by keeping these out of the USA, for a tweet?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312 {Off-topic: Because the KKK were (mainly) killing black people and their supporters in Southern states, 'we' don't really think of them as terrorists, nor the people that still push their agenda today as terrorist sympathisers.}
- knz 9y ago
  > The most deadly terrorist group to hit the USA was the KKK, with over 3000 black Americans lynched Not to take away from the terror of the KKK, but 9/11 was more deadly - "The attacks caused the deaths of 2,996 people and the injuries of more than 6,000 others" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks). 9,000+ killed or wounded on a single day, massive economic impact, and a Global War on Terror that is still going on today.
  - ljf 9y ago
    Don't get me wrong, 9/11 was certainly a devastating horror and the impacts were huge - I was just pointing out that the larger number of deaths (consensus is that around 3400 black people and 1400 white people were killed by the KKK or other racist groups that were part of a wave of anti black terror [correcting myself to my comment above that it was all attributable to the KKK]: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/27/allen-west/allen-west-more-black-black-murders-six-months-86-/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/27/... ) and on the whole the conspirators were American born terrorists with a single goal in mind. This lynchings took place over many many years, but the affect on the black population would have been massive and the social and economic effects can still be felt today. Thankfully the western world doesn't see anything like this today.

ljf 9y ago

This. The most deadly terrorist group to hit the USA was the KKK, with over 3000 black Americans lynched and also over 1000 white Americans killed. Plus countless lives ruined, terrorised, and affected. These were Americans killing Americans, and similar to the pattern we've seen throughout the 1900s and into the 2000s, it is most likely that future terrorists will also be home grown. As to this system, was there anything to be gained by keeping these out of the USA, for a tweet?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16810312 {Off-topic: Because the KKK were (mainly) killing black people and their supporters in Southern states, 'we' don't really think of them as terrorists, nor the people that still push their agenda today as terrorist sympathisers.}

knz 9y ago
> The most deadly terrorist group to hit the USA was the KKK, with over 3000 black Americans lynched Not to take away from the terror of the KKK, but 9/11 was more deadly - "The attacks caused the deaths of 2,996 people and the injuries of more than 6,000 others" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks). 9,000+ killed or wounded on a single day, massive economic impact, and a Global War on Terror that is still going on today.
- ljf 9y ago
  Don't get me wrong, 9/11 was certainly a devastating horror and the impacts were huge - I was just pointing out that the larger number of deaths (consensus is that around 3400 black people and 1400 white people were killed by the KKK or other racist groups that were part of a wave of anti black terror [correcting myself to my comment above that it was all attributable to the KKK]: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/27/allen-west/allen-west-more-black-black-murders-six-months-86-/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/27/... ) and on the whole the conspirators were American born terrorists with a single goal in mind. This lynchings took place over many many years, but the affect on the black population would have been massive and the social and economic effects can still be felt today. Thankfully the western world doesn't see anything like this today.