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> A team of European law-enforcement officials was hot on the trail of a potential terror plot in October, fearing an attack during Christmas season, when their

> A team of European law-enforcement officials was hot on the trail of a potential terror plot in October, fearing an attack during Christmas season, when their keyhole into a suspect’s phone went dark. There was no terror attack. Why is this the framing of the story?

lm28469 7y ago
Just so you know: many, if not most, terror attacks aren't disclosed to the public when they are stopped before happening.
- dboreham 7y ago
  How convenient.
  - lm28469 7y ago
    It makes sense in literally every way you look at it. Can't be used for political reasons ("look at us we stopped 10 attacks by the bad guys, reelect us because the last president only stopped 5"), avoid leaking info to potential accomplices, &c.
    - FDSGSG 7y ago
      How can this possibly work? Do they just not prosecute these people then?
      - lm28469 7y ago
        Of course you do, you just don't display it on every single mainstream news channels for 2 weeks straight like we do when an attack is successful. Just like for every other crimes, if you look for details you'll find them but they won't be given to you in national news.
        sneak 7y ago
        The government doesn’t get to choose what gets displayed on the news. I am sure the news would love to run information about the prosecution of foiled terrorists. Could it perhaps be that terrorism is a vastly overhyped threat, and that effectively zero people are undertaking it?
        thinkingemote 7y ago
        The prosecutions are covered by the news. There is one in the UK today. The point is that a foiled plot doesn't get reported on when it's discovered only when the offender goes to trial. There is no public record of each arrest by the police, as an example which might help understand this. Furthermore there will be plots that are foiled, people arrested but prosecutions dropped due to lack of evidence or something and, again, the press offices in the police or government are not mandated to distribute that news.
        afthonos 7y ago
        Can’t speak for the UK, but in the US, literally every terrorism prosecution that involved a foiled plot in the past ten years or so has involved the FBI convincing some helpless, directionless loser to do a bad thing and then arresting said loser and claiming victory against Al-Qaeda. The entire plot had been made up by the FBI. That’s not to say the guys who agreed to said plots were blameless. That’s to say that I’ve seen zero evidence that the FBI has brought any actual, independently motivated terrorists to justice by foiling their plots.
        user1980 7y ago
        How about the 2009 New York City Subway plot[1]? I suppose it's possible that Zazi was a patsy, but if you take the Wikipedia page at face value it seems pretty damning. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_New_York_City_Subway_and_United_Kingdom_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_New_York_City_Subway_and_...
        7y ago
deepersprout 7y ago
> There was no terror attack. Why is this the framing of the story? Maybe there was no terror attack because the intelligence gathered from the hacked phones prevented it.
- afthonos 7y ago
  Then congratulations are in order for the police, who did their jobs, and for Facebook, who secured their system. Less flippantly, here’s the buried follow-up: > “WhatsApp killed the operation,” the official said. The terror suspect is still under traditional surveillance. But human resources are spread thin, the official said, especially around the winter holidays, which in Europe extend into early January and are a time when terrorists have staged attacks on the continent. “He’s not the only suspect we have to follow.” This clearly indicates that the police have alternative means of tackling the issue. This means that privacy can be protected — at a cost. Note that no one mentions this in the article. The dichotomy presented is “snooping or TERRORISM”, not “snooping or increased resources for police to track their terror suspects”.

lm28469 7y ago

Just so you know: many, if not most, terror attacks aren't disclosed to the public when they are stopped before happening.

dboreham 7y ago
How convenient.
- lm28469 7y ago
  It makes sense in literally every way you look at it. Can't be used for political reasons ("look at us we stopped 10 attacks by the bad guys, reelect us because the last president only stopped 5"), avoid leaking info to potential accomplices, &c.
  - FDSGSG 7y ago
    How can this possibly work? Do they just not prosecute these people then?
    - lm28469 7y ago
      Of course you do, you just don't display it on every single mainstream news channels for 2 weeks straight like we do when an attack is successful. Just like for every other crimes, if you look for details you'll find them but they won't be given to you in national news.
      - sneak 7y ago
        The government doesn’t get to choose what gets displayed on the news. I am sure the news would love to run information about the prosecution of foiled terrorists. Could it perhaps be that terrorism is a vastly overhyped threat, and that effectively zero people are undertaking it?
        thinkingemote 7y ago
        The prosecutions are covered by the news. There is one in the UK today. The point is that a foiled plot doesn't get reported on when it's discovered only when the offender goes to trial. There is no public record of each arrest by the police, as an example which might help understand this. Furthermore there will be plots that are foiled, people arrested but prosecutions dropped due to lack of evidence or something and, again, the press offices in the police or government are not mandated to distribute that news.
        afthonos 7y ago
        Can’t speak for the UK, but in the US, literally every terrorism prosecution that involved a foiled plot in the past ten years or so has involved the FBI convincing some helpless, directionless loser to do a bad thing and then arresting said loser and claiming victory against Al-Qaeda. The entire plot had been made up by the FBI. That’s not to say the guys who agreed to said plots were blameless. That’s to say that I’ve seen zero evidence that the FBI has brought any actual, independently motivated terrorists to justice by foiling their plots.
        user1980 7y ago
        How about the 2009 New York City Subway plot[1]? I suppose it's possible that Zazi was a patsy, but if you take the Wikipedia page at face value it seems pretty damning. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_New_York_City_Subway_and_United_Kingdom_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_New_York_City_Subway_and_...
        7y ago

deepersprout 7y ago

> There was no terror attack. Why is this the framing of the story? Maybe there was no terror attack because the intelligence gathered from the hacked phones prevented it.

afthonos 7y ago
Then congratulations are in order for the police, who did their jobs, and for Facebook, who secured their system. Less flippantly, here’s the buried follow-up: > “WhatsApp killed the operation,” the official said. The terror suspect is still under traditional surveillance. But human resources are spread thin, the official said, especially around the winter holidays, which in Europe extend into early January and are a time when terrorists have staged attacks on the continent. “He’s not the only suspect we have to follow.” This clearly indicates that the police have alternative means of tackling the issue. This means that privacy can be protected — at a cost. Note that no one mentions this in the article. The dichotomy presented is “snooping or TERRORISM”, not “snooping or increased resources for police to track their terror suspects”.