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The NSA isn't stupid. They know that screening for absurdly low incident things is an exercise in futility. I draw the same conclusion as you because of this:
by jlgreco 13y ago
The NSA isn't stupid. They know that screening for absurdly low incident things is an exercise in futility. I draw the same conclusion as you because of this: they don't care.
...well, not about terrorists anyway. If you are interested in flagging people that make up a much larger portion of the population then such systems are very practical. A P(flag|pot head)=.99 and P(flag|sober)=.01 would make for a distressingly effective system for example.
- einhverfr 13y agoBut at least they can say they are doing something. What they care about is saying that they care. It's like the satirical 2008 SwiftKids for Truth ad allegedly in support of Guiliani's Presidential Campaign: "It's time someone stood up and said 9/11... a lot"
- s_kilk 13y agoI don't think it's even really about flagging anyone. The objective is more likely to be good old-fashioned careerism than anything else. These guys are in the business of "screening for terrorists" (apparently), so they are unlikely to want to see less terrorists in the world. That would put them out of a job. No, much better to expand the definition of terrorist, and expand surveilance so they have plenty of work to keep busy with.