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How would you identify and disrupt terrorist cells in America that were talking with known terrorists overseas? I'm not trying to defend the government, but ge

How would you identify and disrupt terrorist cells in America that were talking with known terrorists overseas? I'm not trying to defend the government, but genuinely ask, 'How would you do it?'

smackfu 13y ago
If you start by thinking you need to stop crimes before they happen, it opens the way up for much broader abuses. When the government does want to be preventative, usually they just set up a fake terrorist who tries to recruit people into their fake plan, and then arrest those people when they agree. Of course, it's debatable whether they would have done anything at all without the fake terrorist, but it gets results!
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  That's a pretty inaccurate mischaracterization of how those operations work. Typically the FBI doesn't arrest someone until they have planted or attempted to detonate the fake bomb. Of course, it's debatable whether they would have done anything at all without the fake terrorist Not often. If you read the transcripts of the recordings made in such cases (which are often attached to the indictment as evidence, or sometimes available in audio form), the sad fact is that some people run towards the honeypot at full speed. It's entrapment to encourage a reluctant or uncommitted person, but there are quite a few people who are eager to engage in such behavior.
noonespecial 13y ago
There comes a point where you just admit that you can't. Bad people do bad things and sometimes you can't stop them. Burning the whole village to save it, cure worse than the disease, cutting noses to spite faces, and all that.
- don_draper 13y ago
  In the age of nuclear weapons doing nothing is not acceptable.
  - beat 13y ago
    That doesn't mean doing ANYTHING becomes acceptable. There are lines that shouldn't be crossed. We can debate what those lines should be, but you're suggesting there are no lines.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - apendleton 13y ago
    Why not? Isn't it at least possible that even the successful detonation of a nuclear weapon would be preferable, from a societal net-quality-of-life perspective, than preventing said detonation, if the tactics necessary for preventing it were sufficiently extreme?
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  But sometimes you can, and the government is constitutionally mandated to defend the US and its people. You can't just cherry-pick the bits you like out of the Constitution while ignoring large chunks of it that you're not as comfortable with; for good or ill, it does invest the government with quite wide-ranging powers. congress is empowered to license mercenaries and assassins, for example, though its power to issue letters of marque and reprisal.
- rayiner 13y ago
  How exactly is capturing CDR's "burning the village"?
  - cheald 13y ago
    Violating your core principles to fix a problem is pretty much the definition of "cure being worse than the disease".
    - rayiner 13y ago
      What "core principle" extends to the government not collecting information you happily share with big corporations?
      - cheald 13y ago
        The Fourth Amendment, prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure by the government. Search and seize with probable cause, sure, go nuts. But "seize it all and let big data sort it out" is a pretty fundamental abdication of the oath our officials took to uphold the Constitution, no matter what the excuse for it is.
        rayiner 13y ago
        The 4th amendment is not a prohibition on collection of information about someone. It's a prohibition of violating the sanctity of your home and person to collect that information: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The beauty of the modern world is that the government does not have to violate the sanctity of your home or person to get tons of information about you. You freely give it away: to Google, AT&T, Facebook, etc. Nothing about the 4th amendment prohibits them from going and asking these entities for information they have about you or that you have shared with them.
        dragonwriter 13y ago
        > The 4th amendment is not a prohibition on collection of information about someone. It's a prohibition of violating the sanctity of your home and person to collect that information. There's actually considerable current debate (and it will no doubt accelerate with the recent revelations) over the extent to which the "persons, houses, papers, and effects" part of the Fourth Amendment extends beyond ones physical body and tangible property, but its eminently clear that it does because the 4th Amendment is the basis of the general requirement of warrants for wiretaps, even when the wiretaps do not involve a "physical penetration of a constitutionally protected area". [1] [1] Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Potentially we can though. Why is our first reaction to hamstring our intelligence agencies and deny them information other entities doubtless already have? Why not instead work out how to provide them the information in a way that both protects our rights and enables them to do what we pay them to do?
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Why is our first reaction to hamstring our intelligence agencies and deny them information other entities doubtless already have? Because history, that's why. FISA -- in its original form, not the "War on Terror"-era "FISA Amendments Act" -- was a limitation on government surveillance power which criminalized all sorts of surveillance except in very narrow circumstances, that was adopted not because of theoretical concerns but because of widespread, notorious, abuse of the national security intelligence-gathering capabilities of the US government for political purposes by the executive branch of the United States government, particularly during the Nixon Administration. These limitations were weakened through the FISA Amendments Act on the excuse that the limitations were "hamstringing" our intelligence agencies and jeopardizing our national security (after it became publicly clear that, in fact, the limitations were being widely ignored, and the current administration wanted legal cover for actions that it was already undertaking despite the law), and, hey, look what we see -- massive, unfocussed, broad-spectrum surveillance of exactly the type we were assured wouldn't happen if we loosened the reins a bit so that the executive branch had the tools it supposedly needed to focus on direct threats from terrorists without overly burdensome constraints.
manuelflara 13y ago
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
mikeash 13y ago
Through regular old-fashioned police work, as was done in decades past.

How would you identify and disrupt terrorist cells in America that were talking with known terrorists overseas? I'm not trying to defend the government, but genuinely ask, 'How would you do it?'

smackfu 13y ago

If you start by thinking you need to stop crimes before they happen, it opens the way up for much broader abuses. When the government does want to be preventative, usually they just set up a fake terrorist who tries to recruit people into their fake plan, and then arrest those people when they agree. Of course, it's debatable whether they would have done anything at all without the fake terrorist, but it gets results!

anigbrowl 13y ago
That's a pretty inaccurate mischaracterization of how those operations work. Typically the FBI doesn't arrest someone until they have planted or attempted to detonate the fake bomb. Of course, it's debatable whether they would have done anything at all without the fake terrorist Not often. If you read the transcripts of the recordings made in such cases (which are often attached to the indictment as evidence, or sometimes available in audio form), the sad fact is that some people run towards the honeypot at full speed. It's entrapment to encourage a reluctant or uncommitted person, but there are quite a few people who are eager to engage in such behavior.

noonespecial 13y ago

There comes a point where you just admit that you can't. Bad people do bad things and sometimes you can't stop them. Burning the whole village to save it, cure worse than the disease, cutting noses to spite faces, and all that.

don_draper 13y ago
In the age of nuclear weapons doing nothing is not acceptable.
- beat 13y ago
  That doesn't mean doing ANYTHING becomes acceptable. There are lines that shouldn't be crossed. We can debate what those lines should be, but you're suggesting there are no lines.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- apendleton 13y ago
  Why not? Isn't it at least possible that even the successful detonation of a nuclear weapon would be preferable, from a societal net-quality-of-life perspective, than preventing said detonation, if the tactics necessary for preventing it were sufficiently extreme?
anigbrowl 13y ago
But sometimes you can, and the government is constitutionally mandated to defend the US and its people. You can't just cherry-pick the bits you like out of the Constitution while ignoring large chunks of it that you're not as comfortable with; for good or ill, it does invest the government with quite wide-ranging powers. congress is empowered to license mercenaries and assassins, for example, though its power to issue letters of marque and reprisal.
rayiner 13y ago
How exactly is capturing CDR's "burning the village"?
- cheald 13y ago
  Violating your core principles to fix a problem is pretty much the definition of "cure being worse than the disease".
  - rayiner 13y ago
    What "core principle" extends to the government not collecting information you happily share with big corporations?
    - cheald 13y ago
      The Fourth Amendment, prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure by the government. Search and seize with probable cause, sure, go nuts. But "seize it all and let big data sort it out" is a pretty fundamental abdication of the oath our officials took to uphold the Constitution, no matter what the excuse for it is.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        The 4th amendment is not a prohibition on collection of information about someone. It's a prohibition of violating the sanctity of your home and person to collect that information: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The beauty of the modern world is that the government does not have to violate the sanctity of your home or person to get tons of information about you. You freely give it away: to Google, AT&T, Facebook, etc. Nothing about the 4th amendment prohibits them from going and asking these entities for information they have about you or that you have shared with them.
        dragonwriter 13y ago
        > The 4th amendment is not a prohibition on collection of information about someone. It's a prohibition of violating the sanctity of your home and person to collect that information. There's actually considerable current debate (and it will no doubt accelerate with the recent revelations) over the extent to which the "persons, houses, papers, and effects" part of the Fourth Amendment extends beyond ones physical body and tangible property, but its eminently clear that it does because the 4th Amendment is the basis of the general requirement of warrants for wiretaps, even when the wiretaps do not involve a "physical penetration of a constitutionally protected area". [1] [1] Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)
sliverstorm 13y ago
Potentially we can though. Why is our first reaction to hamstring our intelligence agencies and deny them information other entities doubtless already have? Why not instead work out how to provide them the information in a way that both protects our rights and enables them to do what we pay them to do?
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Why is our first reaction to hamstring our intelligence agencies and deny them information other entities doubtless already have? Because history, that's why. FISA -- in its original form, not the "War on Terror"-era "FISA Amendments Act" -- was a limitation on government surveillance power which criminalized all sorts of surveillance except in very narrow circumstances, that was adopted not because of theoretical concerns but because of widespread, notorious, abuse of the national security intelligence-gathering capabilities of the US government for political purposes by the executive branch of the United States government, particularly during the Nixon Administration. These limitations were weakened through the FISA Amendments Act on the excuse that the limitations were "hamstringing" our intelligence agencies and jeopardizing our national security (after it became publicly clear that, in fact, the limitations were being widely ignored, and the current administration wanted legal cover for actions that it was already undertaking despite the law), and, hey, look what we see -- massive, unfocussed, broad-spectrum surveillance of exactly the type we were assured wouldn't happen if we loosened the reins a bit so that the executive branch had the tools it supposedly needed to focus on direct threats from terrorists without overly burdensome constraints.

manuelflara 13y ago

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

mikeash 13y ago

Through regular old-fashioned police work, as was done in decades past.